Cross your heart and hope to fly
by catapilla1
Summary: Finding out the flock is alive three years after they disappear? No biggie. Having Fang find and rescue me? Not a problem. A new hunter and a new company? I can deal. Finding out we're immortal...ok, that one freaked me out a little bit, too. POST FANG AU
1. dead

**Hiiiiiii everybody!**

**Dylan: hi doctor nick!**

**Me: *rolls eyes***

**Dylan: er, why are we back at the first chapter?**

**Me: because this whole story needed revising, and I'm sick and my mind is working too slowly to come out with new chapters**

**Dylan: right. Don't you have a certain disclaimer to do?**

**Me: you mean that thing where I say everything but the OCs and the plot are owned by one Mister James Patterson?**

**Dylan: yep**

**Me: meh, slack **

The flock is dead. All gone but me. All because of _her_. Now she's after me. I don't have much longer to live. The land was just a blur below me, greens and greys all mushing together.

Dylan was the first one she took. He was careless and arrogant, not waiting for the rest of us to take her on. We found his body, broken in the forest. His neck and spine had been snapped, a knife in his heart. We burned him, gave him a hero's burial. Next to go were my two wonderful and loving pyros. I had mistakenly let them go to a clearing, alone, so they could experiment with their bombs. They never came back. We searched for them, through day and night. All we found were two piles of ashes and feathers.

Nudge, my little fashioniesta and motor mouth went next. I let her into town to buy flowers for Iggy's and Gazzy's graves. What we got back was a parcel, addressed to me and Angel, the two surviving members of the flock. Inside the parcel was filled with bloody feathers, topped with three wilted roses. Finally, our hunter took my baby, my Angel. We never slept or left each other's sides, not wanting to lose each other. My Angel was poisoned, poisoned so there was only me left. A single tear rolled down my cheek. All I can ask is that my flock is happy, safe and together, wherever they are.

I have seen my tracker, once. She was a creation, another mutant made by Itex. She had a skill, once she caught the scent of her prey, she would never lose it. And she will never rest until her prey is dead.

Flying is no longer the fun, thrill-inducing hobby it used to be, it now marked me as a loner, a freak without her flock. A bird is hopeless without the rest of its flock. I have no idea where I'm flying to, I have nowhere to go, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I have dropped all communication to the outside world. I wasn't talking to mum, out of fear my hunter would go after her next. I'm also glad Fang left the flock, so he would have to face the fear and death the rest of us faced. He'll just be disappointed, in seventeen years more time, when he finds himself at the caves, alone. Even the voice has left me. I believe it was also killed, I don't know how though, I always thought it was a part of my head. I'm alone.

_Maximum, you'll never be alone._ I nearly fell out of the sky. _Voice? I thought you were gone, just like everyone else. The flock is dead, and I'm alone._ _Maximum, the flock can never be really truly dead, and you can never be truly alone. The flock will always be there, as long as you live on. They live on inside of you._ I shook my head. How many times has that cliché phrase been used? _It might be clichéd but it is still true, you will see that, soon. __But voice, they won't be alive for long, for I am doomed as well. __Not as doomed as you may think._ Huh? I angled my wings so I could start to descend. Suddenly, there was a sharp and strong pain in my left wing. _So not doomed huh? Nice try voice._ The ground was coming closer, or rather; I was plummeting towards the earth. _This is it; I'm going to die now._ I strained my wings and began to flap. I could fly, it was just _extremely_ painful.

The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective. Take right now, for instance. _Fly! Push through! You know you can do it!_

I gulped in deep lungful's of air. My brain was on hyper-drive; I was racing for my life. My one goal was to live, nothing else mattered.

My clothes getting soaked from every cloud I've fallen through? No biggie.

Gunshot in my left wing toying with my chances of survival? Not a problem.

My lungs aching from the extremely cold air? I could deal.

As long as I put as much distance as possible between me and the hunter. Yeah, my hunter, mutant: half human, half bat, always armed, always blood thirsty. Right now she was after me.

See? That snaps everything into perspective. _Fly, you're faster than she is! You can out-fly anyone._

I have never been this far west before, I was totally lost. Still, my wings pumped on my back, my body soared through the clouds, my eyes scanned ahead anxiously through the half-light. I could out-fly her, I could find an opening, with enough time for me to-

_Oh, no. Oh, no. _The unearthly screeches of bats wailed through the sky, and I felt sick. I could out-fly her- all of us could, even Angel and she was only nine. But none of us could escape being cornered by a whole flock of vampire bats.

_Bats, bats, go away, let me live another day._ This was giving me the odd sense of déjà vu. I felt like this has happened to me before, in a dream, a life-time ago.

My body was aching and I was trapped. They forced me to the ground, and I landed.

I looked around; I was in a clearing, alone. "Hello Max. We finally meet. You have been rather difficult to track, without the rest of your beloved flock," said a smooth, clear voice. I was not as alone as I thought.

"Just kill me and get over it," I said through gritted teeth.

"Planning on." And then she revealed herself. She was in black jeans and T-shirt, her black, bat-like wings were spread. Her Dark brown hair was pulled up into a ponytail, her dark green eyes assessing me. I watched in horror as she raised her hand, her nails turning into talons. "And so the day came when the great, Maximum Ride was finally destroyed!" She cackled. I closed my eyes and waited for death to come.

It never came. Instead, I heard an 'oof' and something, or _someone_ falling to the ground. Strong arms lifted me off my feet and I heard large wings being unfurled. Then was the sensation of flying. Huh? Maybe she did kill me and now I was just getting carried off to a better place.

I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was two large, midnight wings. I looked into my rescuer's dark eyes. They were filled with sorrow and anguish, but also love. My eyes held the exact same emotions. "Fang, they're gone, all gone," I whispered.

"Ssh, it's not your fault. Sleep," he cooed. Within seconds I was in the arms of Morpheus.

**So that's the First chapter revised**

**Dylan: why are you revising again?**

**Me: because I'm sick and I've got nothing better to do**

**Dylan: you could always write the nest chapter**

**Me: Doing it as we speak, but When I was re-reading this not too long ago, I realised that I forgot facts or simply ignored or forgot what I wrote so nothing made sense.**

**Dylan: nothing ever makes sense around you…**

**Me: XP **

**R&R **


	2. awake

**Chapter two again. This one had a few grammatical mistakes (and I won't be surprised if there's a few more) and I just spaced it out better. I also changed who spoke at the end, it was originally the hunter but now it's our favourite snicker's bar loving white-coat ;) **

When I woke up, I was alone. Again. I think I'm starting to get used to the feeling now. I took in my surroundings: a bed, wardrobe and cheap curtains blocking off the balcony. Yep, definitely a hotel. "Max, you're awake!" a voice right behind me exclaimed. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Fang!" I pulled him into a massive hug. I could never be angry with him, even after he left me three years ago. In fact, I was glad he left, so _she_ wouldn't get him, too. "I love you, Fang," I mumbled into his shirt. That seemed to surprise him into silence, but I guess that isn't so unusual for him.

"Love you too, Max," he finally said.

We stayed like that for a while, hugging, glad that we were both alive. Eventually, much to my dismay, we had to back away from each other so we could eat. I never let him go, though, always holding onto his hand. We wandered into the kitchenette and started making breakfast. Well, Fang started making breakfast. My cooking skills haven't improved over the years.

For the first time, I took in Fang's appearance. Fang was HOT. I mean, he was hot before he left, but now he was even HOTTER, if that was even possible. He was more muscular (man, did this boy have abs!), his black hair was messy and sticking out everywhere and his dark eyes were orbs I could get lost in. Now I had Fang back, I didn't feel quite so alone. Still, thinking of the flock still brought a tear to my eye. Damn! There it is...I wiped it away before Fang could see. "So you heard about the flock, huh?" I asked, my heart clenching.

Fang looked up from the food he was preparing and nodded darkly. "She took my flock, before she went after you," he said. Ok, now I'm curious.

"You had a flock?"

"Yeah, but not all were human/avian hybrids like us. I had five in total, not including me. First she killed Tyler, my right-wing-girl. She was a human/avian hybrid, but she was four percent bird, rather than two. Next she took Radar. He was a human/hyena hybrid that had a power that could tell when an enemy was drawing closer. After that, she took Nakita, or Kitty, as she preferred to be called. She was a human/lion hybrid. Then she killed Theo. He was just an enhanced human, but he seemed to bring the rest of us together. Lastly," Fang took a deep breath, closed his eyes and he clenched his jaw. I could tell he was trying not to cry, so I walked over to him and put my arms around his waist. "Lastly she took Faith. Faith was a...experiment. I found her just after I left the flock, at a base of Itex. She was a couple of months old when I found her. I grabbed her, and her information file. Faith was my favourite. What really breaks my heart is that she never got to meet her mommy before she died. I stayed with her until the end."

Wow, that is really sad. "I'm sorry Fang. Faith sounded like a sweet kid. But do you think her mommy would love her? After all, she was an experiment."

Fang's eyes bored right into mine. "Trust me, her mommy would love her to death, and she wouldn't care she was a mutant."

"But how are you so sure?"

"I know because I know you, Max. You would have loved her, and she would've loved you."

I froze. "Sh-she was _my_ daughter?"

"As I said, she was an experiment. They combined some of your DNA and some of my DNA and saw what happened."

Hang on, Fang's DNA? That would've made him her _father?_ My eyes started leaking, with what appeared to be water. I refused to admit I was crying. So not only has that stupid hunter taken my flock away, she also took my DAUGHTER! That bitch is going down.

I looked up at Fang with blurry eyes. His jaw was tight and I could tell he was fighting back tears. At least we still had each other.

Suddenly my left wing felt like it was zapped with a Taser. I whimpered and Fang immediately tightened his hold on me.

"What's wrong?"

"My wing," I whimpered. Before, I noticed that he had taken the bullet out and set my bone right. My wing was fully healed, so why was it acting up now? I slowly unfurled it. My breath caught in my throat as I caught sight of my primary feathers (you know, the big ones on the end that pretty much do all the flying). They were _clear._ As in they were no longer dark brown, they had no colour at all, not even white. You could see right through them. Fang said a few four-letter bad words.

"Yep, that pretty much sums up this whole situation," I said. My wing felt numb. It felt really weird: one wing felt perfectly fine, but the other I couldn't feel. It made me feel strangely lopsided.

In the minute that followed, feeling returned to my wing. The colour also returned. The catch? The colour wasn't what it originally was. Fang and I watched in fascination as _colour_ returned. Now my primary feather colours went like this: a single white feather, whiter than any white I have ever seen; a sandy feather; a tawny feather; a strawberry-blonde feather; a dirty-blonde feather and a _silver_ feather. All the colours seemed really familiar, except for the last one.

"Max, it's the colours of the flocks' feathers!" Fang gasped. He was right, except for one though.

"What about the silver one?" I asked. He smiled at me, his eyes shining.

"Faith had beautiful silver-black wings," he explained. OMF (oh my fnick)! _Hey Max!_ This time, I really jumped out of my skin. Well, not really, but I did jump pretty high.

_Angel?_

_Hey what about me! And Iggy, Nudge, Dylan and Faith!_

_Gazzy, you too? Hang on, Faith?_ Ok, normally I don't mess with voices in my head, but they sounded so much like the flock, it wasn't funny.

_Yeah Max, we all live on in you! Don't worry, everything will work out in the end! _

"Max, are you ok?" Fang asked. I held up a finger to silence him.

_So what was with the freaky feather thing?_

_It was so you could remember us, mommy._

_Aw, hello Faith. But I could never forget any of you!_

_Ooh, I can't wait for what happens next! _Angel sang, in my head.

_Well, you've got us and our wings_, _so what else do you think you've inherited? _

"Powers," I whispered out loud. Fang gave me a questioning look. "They're here, the voice is right. They _do_ live on inside of me," I elaborated.

"How?"

"I don't know. All I know is that they're in my head, having a life in the confines of my brain. The only bad thing is that I now have seven voices in my head, instead of one," I continued.

"Seven?"

"The voice, the flock and...Faith. I can hear her Fang." Fang looked at me, his beautiful midnight eyes filling with tears. I pulled him into another hug. Eventually I took his face into my hands, and connected my lips with his. That kiss was the most wonderful feeling on the planet. We rolled onto the floor and I was on top of Fang, straddling his waist. We never broke that kiss for a second.

_Ew Max! Get. A. Room!_ Iggy said in my head.

_I have a room. If you don't like it, get out of my head!_ I didn't hear from him again.

**? POV**

It felt like a weight has been lifted off my chest. I started breathing and my heart started beating again. I slowly opened my eyes. I gasped as I saw my surroundings. I was back in a cage! I heard whimpering from the cage next to mine. The thoughts told me it was a bad dream. Suddenly my head exploded in pain, but I didn't let out a single whimper. The girl in the cage next to mine screamed, as did several other voices. I knew they were sharing the same pain as me. I could hear thoughts of white-coats from the room next to ours, but I didn't care. All I was worried about was the pain. Slowly, emotions from several directions that weren't my own ebbed into my body. The thoughts of the people around me were much stronger now. They were all terrified. Before I could reassure them everything will be ok, the door slammed open. A white-coat walked in. She had an evil grin on his face and his thoughts were quite disturbing.

"Velcome bach to School...Subject Eleven."

**Chapter two done. I'm changing the story around a bit from the original and I'm trying to make the 'hunter' a bit less psychopathic! I'll also be putting in a back story to her back story so you can see there's a reason for doing the things she did/will do. **


	3. alive

**Guess what!**

**Dylan: you're mad and I'm not?**

**Me: hey! That's my line! Anyway, guess!**

**Dylan: umm…it's school holidays?**

**Me: it is, but that's not it.**

**Dylan: ok, I give up…**

**Me: it's chapter threeeeeeee!**

**Dylan: *facepalm***

Subject 11 POV

Max taught us that pain was just a message, a message telling you that you're still alive. But this pain was different. It's like the pain I had, when I was two. It's the pain I had when all the voices of people's minds entered my head.

The flock's voices were becoming clearer in my head, clearer than they had ever been. The white-coat flinched back and then scowled. Suddenly, a new voice was in my head: Max's voice. She was wondering what just happened to her wing. A picture of her wing, with different coloured primary feathers flashed through my mind. The colours of the feathers were the colours of _our_ feathers. I slowly realised what was happening. The flock was getting a telepathic connection. Our leader, Max, would be hearing everyone's thoughts. We all just only heard hers. Well, except for me, who could hear everyone. Not only would she get our minds, but she would also get our powers.

"Subjects...Your mental connection vith your flock leader 'as veen successvul. But she believes you are dead, and I vould like to keep it zat way for now. Inform her zat you are dead, taking vatever means necessary, make up anything, to make her believe you are gone. Ve have our own telepath, who vill monitor your thoughts, so don't bother trying to tell her otherwise. If any of you disobey, _all_ of you vill be terminated immediately," _I hope they do...I've been looking forward to killing them properly._ I shuddered at his thoughts.

Max POV

My head hurt like hell. It was just like another brain attack. The only difference this time is it was voices instead of images. _Hungry, wonder what mum's made for lunch...Aw crap! The boss will fire me if he finds out...Why didn't mommy buy me any lollies? I want..._ I tuned all these voices out. Then, one final voice, clearer than the others, sounded in my head. _Max looks so beautiful. Faith and her would have gotten on so well. She would also get on so well with Tyler, they're similar in so many ways, it's not funny!_ I looked at Fang startled.

"Uh, Fang, tell me _exactly_ what you were thinking," I said, my voice shaking slightly. He frowned but answered me anyway.

"Um, how beautiful you are, how you and Faith would have gotten along and how similar you and Tyler were. Why?" he asked.

"I think I just received Angel's power," I said faintly. _Nod your head if you can hear this. _I nodded my head.

"That confirms it," Fang said. I put my hand on his soft black downy feathers, and the weirdest feeling came to me. I closed my eyes, and I could feel _black. _I could actually feel it! I gasped and opened my eyes. "Iggy," was all I said. "His colour-feeling power," I explained for Fang. He nodded again, like this was the most normal thing in the world. I decided I should test the other flock member's powers. I willed for my spoon and it came. I also could feel the presence of another guy, aged forty-three, balding, worried about his income. Nudge, check. I then decided to have a little fun with Fang.

"Hey Nick! OMG you're actually here!" I said, imitating Lisa's voice, hitting it perfectly. Fang whirled around to face me, his expression annoyed. I could have some fun with this power. I just hope that I don't inherit Gazzy's other power. I grinned at him and he just rolled his eyes. I closed my eyes, and then opened them again, thinking _Paris, Paris, Paris! _I looked around and instead of being in the hotel room, I saw the Eifel Tower. Dylan's power has come through. But then a strange power came to me, my body felt extremely cold. I held my hand in front of me and it was slowly turning a weird icy blue. I imagined hitting the fridge, with whatever was building up inside me. When I opened my eyes, Fang was staring at me in wonder, and the fridge was covered in a thick layer of ice. "Hehe, whoops," I muttered. "I'm guessing that was Faith's power?" A nod confirmed it. Okay...hmmm. What to do if you are alone in a room with an extremely hot guy who happens to be your boyfriend/soul-mate.

"Come here," I said, pulling Fang closer.

Subject 11

Eew...just, eew. I never though...Max and Fang...just, eew. 'Max! Block your mind! The poor flock is getting a unique front-row view of your current...activity!' I yelled at her, in my head. _Help us Angel!_ Nudge thought. 'Sorry Nudge, Max is now immune to mind control...' I thought sadly. Well, at least the white-coats have a new way to torture us with: lock Max and Fang up in a room together, and well, you know what happens next. At least I have learned how to block thoughts, so now I can go back to thinking of how to tell Max we're alive...

...

...

...

...

... Yes! I've got it! Code! Why didn't I think of it? Our code that Max uses when there are white-coats around sounds like gibberish to normal people, but to the flock, it's our ultimate way of communicating!

'Max! Wedere Stafill alvertive! Wedere arte eht lessons!' The effect was instantaneous. I just hope she can get here soon.

Max POV  
_Max! Wedere Stafill alvertive! Wedere arte eht lessons! _I shot up immediately and detangled myself from Fang. Is it true? Is the flock still alive? _Yes Maximum._

"What is it?" Fang asked, worrying again.

"The flock...they're alive!"

**This chapter didn't actually have a lot that needed fixing up, which is a nice change. I'm aiming to get the chapters a bit longer, so if the chapters aren't at the length of your liking, don't fret. They'll be getting longer.**

**Reviews are appreciated and are more treasured than gold.**


	4. stories

**Hello!  
Dylan: hi  
Me: extremely short chapter this one  
Dylan: :(  
Me: but I'm also posting it with a new story!  
Dylan: :)  
Me: are you alright there?  
Dylan: ?**

Max POV

I grabbed our packs and started filling them with supplies. Fang ran around the apartment searching for clothes that we will need and some loose change. I zipped up the packs and put one on my back and handed the other to Fang.

"Which Itex base are they at?" he asked.

"Angel said _lessons_, so the one where I was kept in an isolation tank." You see, we have code names for all the different Itex bases: _home_ for the one we were created in; _lessons_ for the one just mentioned; _creature_ for the one in Germany; _text books_ for the one in Washington, you get the picture. I knew that the one where I was in the isolation tank was somewhere north of Florida, so I'll let my internal tracking do the rest.

Fang and I jumped off the balcony, working our wings powerfully to get extra height. Flying didn't feel so bad now that I know that the rest of the flock are alive and I've got Fang with me.

"So where to first?" Fang asked.

"I really need to see my mum, it's been _way_ to long," I said, so we started heading south.

.·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·. .·¨·.

I landed in their backyard, Fang following closely behind. Before I could even take a step, I was gulped into a massive bear hug.

"MAX! Where have you BEEN?" my half-sister yelled.

"Hiding."

"Oh." We started walking inside.

"Are you coming Fang?" I asked, looking straight where Fang should be, and is standing invisible. He turned visible and shrugged. Ella's eyes widened and gave me a you-are-in-so-much-trouble-missy-tell-me-everything look.

I stepped inside the house and the familiar scent of homemade cookies filled my senses. "Mum, you'll never believe who's here!" Ella called.

"Who sweety?" a voice that I missed so much asked from the kitchen. The three of us went into the kitchen.

"Hey mum..." I trailed off. My mother had changed, a lot. Her hair was greyer, her eyes tired, she looked really frail and had the look of someone who was battling a sickness. She smiled apologetically.

"Max! Where have you been! And Fang too? Well, why don't we sit down and you tell your story? I quickly get the cookies out of the oven." Despite her appearance, she hadn't changed a bit.

Fang, Ella and I sat on the couch and my mum sat across from us, with a plate of fresh cookies in her hands. Once she set them down on the table, they were gone within a minute. "So what happened?"

I spent the next hour explaining to mum and Ella what happened, Fang putting in his occasional word to what happened to him during that time. Mum and Ella looked so depressed when I told them the flock was dead; mutinous at the new hunter; and extremely relieved at the fact the flock is still alive.

"So that's why I haven't been in touch," I finished. Ella and mum had tears in their eyes by the end of our thrilling tale.

"My, all this story-telling has worn me out. I might go and lie down for a bit," mum said. I became very worried about her at that. I looked at Ella who gave me a look saying that she'll explain as soon as possible. Mum walked slowly up the stairs and I heard the door snap behind her.

"Mum's been diagnosed with cancer. She's been fighting it for about a year, and doesn't want chemo, so she only has a few months," Ella said sadly. I gasped and leaned into Fang for support. Ella looked at me sadly, with tears in her eyes. "She hasn't got long, so I'm making the last weeks of her life the best weeks she'll ever have. You coming back has definitely raised her spirit."

"Thanks for telling me Ells," I sighed and stood up. "We need to get moving. I want to rescue the flock from that hell hole, the only reason why we stopped by is to let you know we're still alive."

"Ok, thanks so much. It was nice seeing you again, and you too Fang," my half sister hugged us tightly. "Good luck with rescuing the flock. If you need any help, you know how to reach me. Oh! Wait here for a sec!" She raced up to her room to grab something.

A few minutes later, she came back down with seven leather cords in her hand. On closer inspection, I saw that they had charms on them: an eagle in flight. "I made these for the flock years ago. I only just figured out how to put transmitters in them, so-" but she was cut off by me giving her a massive hug.

"Thanks," I whispered to her. I slipped one over my head, handed one to Fang, but I also handed one back to Ella. "You belong in the flock too," I said sternly. She looked surprised but took it and slipped it around her neck.

Fang and I ran into the backyard and stretched our wings and took off. Ella waved to us.

I called to her "Hopefully We'll be back! And if we are, it won't be pretty!"

**Me: if any of you can tell me which book that last line comes from, you'll get a virtual party!  
Dylan: I know! It's  
Me: -clamps hand over Dylan's mouth-  
Me: Don't forget- reviews are your friends! :)**


	5. escape

Max POV  
Flying. The art of using wings or other means of propulsion to move through the air. Freedom. Having liberty and not secluded or trapped. Family. People you associate with that are extremely close to you and you are affectionate about. The three main things in my life: flying, freedom, family. My flock is my family, but not all of my family are in my flock. Take away any one of those three things, and I'll be weaker, but more perseverant than ever.

Someone has taken away my family, and my family's freedom. And now I'm mad.

Fang and I were camping outside the Itex base. We knew we had no hope of completely trashing the place _and_ setting everyone free with just the two of us. Our plan is to get everyone out of there and then fly like bats outa hell. At midnight, our plan was to commence. In five more minutes, we would be setting the flock free.

"Got everything?" Fang asked. He was standing with his black wings spread, his hair in his eyes and his hands in fists. He looked like an angel of death.

"Yep, let's blow this joint," I said grimly. He flashed me a grimace at one of our old catch-phrases. We took off silently, making no noise as flew.

We landed on one of the rooves of the massive facility. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my flock. If I thought I could smell where they were before, then I can practically follow a trail with neon signs pointing the way saying _flock this way_ now. They were right under my feet.

"Fang, you go ahead and disable the cameras using your invisibility. I'll go down the air-duct," I ordered. Fang nodded and turned invisible. I could feel where he was, even if I couldn't see him. It's like I'm aware of where his is all the time, even when we're apart.

I moved to the air-duct and created a hole in the grate by turning my fist into ice and punching it. _You're clear,_ Fang said through his transmitter.

"Thanks. The flock is in the basement. Just follow the hallway until you find some stairs that lead down," I commanded.

_Gottcha. _I slid through the air-duct, trying to make as little noise as possible. I crawled down the big tunnels until they didn't go down any further. I found a vent and looked through. There were cages lined up in the hallway, and in those cages was my flock. I turned my fist into ice again and punched through the vent.

I slipped through the hole the same time Fang came through the door. The flock appeared to be sleeping. I motioned to Fang to start popping locks and freeing everyone. He nodded and made his way over to Iggy's cage. I kneeled down beside Angel's and shook her awake. She blinked drowsily, but the snatched my wrist at the same time.

"It's ok sweety, it's only me," I whispered. I broke her lock and she came flying towards me.

"Max!" she whisper/yelled, throwing her thin arms around my neck.

"Yep, it's me. Can you start popping locks?" I asked. She nodded and went over to Gazzy's cage.

I next went to Nudge's. I opened her cage before I shook her awake. "Nudge, c'mon," I said. Her eyes shot open and she stared at me.

"You're here," she whispered, and got up and hugged me.

By now, everyone was free. But then sirens blared and red lights flashed. I looked to Fang.

"I thought you said you turned off the alarms?" I yelled at him over the blaring.

"I did! They must have some kind of back-up system!" he explained.

I sighed in frustration. How come nothing seems to go right? "Do we have everyone?" I asked the flock.

"Not everyone!" A horribly familiar voice cackled behind me.

I twirled around to see the hunter. In one hand, she held a gun. In the other hand, she held a small child no older than three in a death-grip. The child was beautiful, like an angel who fell from heaven. She even had silver wings.

"Faith..." I whispered. The hunter cackled and Faith screamed. The hunter put the gun to Faith's head.

"Now get back into the cages, and the child gets away unhurt," she demanded.

The flock was frozen. We all knew we have to save Faith, but the only way to do that is to get back into the cages...we got on our hands and knees and crawled in. The hunter laughed.

She then pulled the trigger.

"FAITH!" Fang yelled, but Faith was long gone from hearing. _Bye mommy..._said her innocent voice in my head. _I love you._ Tears welled up in my eyes. Fang cried out in anguish.

I am beyond angry. No one takes away ANY of my flock, ESPECIALLY not my DAUGHTER! I started seeing red. I was growling at her. I began to get all hot all over from the fury. I put my hands on the bars of the cage and somehow melted them, but I didn't care. I flung my hair back over my shoulder, it was getting hot. I spread my wings to let them cool off before I KILL the hunter.

"Come back and fight me yourself, coward," I spat, the words were coming out like fire.

She turned to look at me and I saw some kind of emotion cross her face. "I know how many days a person has left on this earth, Maximum Ride. And I know your time isn't up yet."

And with that, she spread her bat wings and took off up the stairs. I cried out in anger.

_MAX! STOP! CALM DOWN! _Angel's voice screamed in my head. I turned to glare at her. I blinked, but in that extremely short amount of time when my eyes were closed, I saw how I looked to the flock. I looked terrifying. They were scared of me.

My hair and wings were literally on fire. My eyes were bright fire red. My skin glowed slightly. But it wasn't my appearance that scared them- it was the way I acted. I drew in a shaky breath and I felt myself cooling down a bit. _That's it Max,_ Angel whispered in my mind. I took another breath, and soon I was back to normal me. With the last bit of fire in me, I melted all of the locks. The flock hesitantly crawled out of their cages.

"C'mon guys, let's get out of here."

"Ella," I mumbled into my transmitter.

_Yeah Max?_

"Start digging a grave, we've lost someone."

I carried Faith's body all the way back to mom's house. I landed and I was greeted by a tear-stained Ella.

"Who was it?" she sniffled. I showed her Faith.

Her eyes widened in question but didn't ask anything. She led us out the back where she dug a big hole. I nodded my thanks to her. Mom came out of the house, tears running down her cheeks.

I pulled one of the medallions out of my pocket and placed it around Faith's neck. I kissed her forehead and handed her to Fang. He mumbled something in her ear and then lowered her into the grave. I pushed all of the dirt back in place, and then used my fire ability to write something on a large rock: _Here lies Faith Nicole Ride. 2007-2010. _I looked at Fang. _Put 'cross your heart and hope to fly. It was her favourite promise,_ he thought. So that's exactly what I did.

_Here lies Faith Nicole Ride. 2007-2010  
Cross your heart and hope to Fly._

**Me: *sniffles* I cried writing that**

**Dylan: *Sniffles* I cried watching you write that. **

**Me: Don't worry fans, that is definitely NOT the end of the story. I still have a lot to put the flock through... *evil grin***

**Dylan: *hides in terror***

**Me: oh, by the way, Faith is completely dead. Gonners. Passed on. Never coming back. She's already died once and came back, so sorry to get your hopes up, but she's NOT coming back. I was looking forward to writing a bit of a story with her too, but my mind is just like NO! YOU MUST KILL HER! So, yeah...**

**Please R&R!**


	6. immortal

**Me: hello. Umm, got nothing much to say, so...ON WITH THE CHAPTER!**

Max POV

Angel was the first to speak up.

"What are we gonna do now Max? I mean, we need to get rid of the hunter, and save the world from the re-formed Itex, but what do we do to get there?"

"Unfortunately, we're going to have to see the one person who I wanted the hunter to kill. The one person more cryptic and annoying than the voice. The one person who I despise and harbour deep loathing towards..." I trailed off.

"What does that mean?" Nudge asked.

I paused. "I have no idea. I heard it in a movie once, I think..."

"Ok, I'm not a privy to the flock's _list of evil mad scientists list_, so can you tell me who it is?" Ella said.

Fang smirked. "Her father," he answered her.

"Oh. I mean, your dad can't be that bad, right?" Ella asked. I rolled my eyes. Surely she knew this!

"Ella sweety," mom said, "Her father is Jeb."

"Oh...so I guess he is that bad then."

"C'mon guys, we got to get moving before _she _tracks us here," I commanded. My flock stepped out into the now pouring rain.

"Bye mom, Ella," I said hugging them.

"Max, who was that little girl you buried?" mom asked. Tears clouded my vision for a moment.

"I'll tell you when I get back."

The voice had told us where to go, so now, I was standing on a beautiful porch, that was part of a beautiful house, where I was just about to knock on the beautiful front door. I guess Jeb had to have the best of everything when he retired.

"C'mon Max, the door's not going to bite you," Nudge said. I took a deep breath, then knocked.

It took about thirty seconds before someone came to the door, and the person who opened it was the last person I expected to see here.

"Good afternoon Max," Bridget said. I raised an eyebrow.

"Is Jeb home? I need to see him," I said.

"Yes, right this way," Bridget said, leading us into the house. We passed bedrooms, studies, a kitchen, dining rooms and an indoor pool. We stopped in the living room.

"Ah, hello again Maximum. Bridget, leave us," he said sternly to Dr Amazing, and she- _curtsied? _Okay, the world has gone upside down, and the apocalypse turned out to be caused by pink fluffy bunnies. It's odd my mind can still be it's crazy self when I'm in mourning.

"I was expecting your return, and I see you freed your flock. You haven't aged a day since I last saw you," Jeb said.

"Unfortunately, I can't say the same to you," I shot back, with a little grin. However, Jeb was frowning.

"That is odd. Because of your bird genes, you normally appear years older than your actual age. I was afraid this might happen," Jeb sighed.

"Afraid what might happen?" Iggy asked. Jeb gestured towards the seats, so we sat before he resumed explaining.

"When Fang left the flock, you were sixteen-"

"Sixteen?" I asked. Ok, so we lost track of time while we were on the run, but we surely hadn't lost a whole _year?_

"Yes, Sixteen. When I left, you just turned seventeen. It's been three years since then." Whoa, I'm not even a teen anymore? Now that's a scary thought.

"Please continue," Fang drawled.

"Well, yes. You, Fang and Iggy do not look a day older than seventeen. Which is odd, as I explained earlier, because your bird genes stimulate your growth in such a way, that you appear to age and grow faster. But now, Your genes seemed to have stemmed the growing and age completely. You cannot grow, change, or age."

"So we're..." Angel whispered.

"Immortal," I finished, looking at Jeb. Fang, Iggy and I were frozen forever at seventeen. I have no idea about Dylan, and Angel, Gazzy and Nudge still have a little growing left.

"So we could, like, blow ourselves up and we'll come out okay? Cool," Gazzy cheered.

"Immortal and indestructible are two very different things, Gazzy. You may not die of old age, but you could still be killed by a bullet wound or a bomb," Jeb explained.

There was silence while the flock digested this new information. I suddenly felt very old. Like one of those old ladies who live in the retirement village. I mean, the great Maximum Ride is _twenty!_ And no longer a teenager!

Angel giggled, and everyone looked at her. "Just Max's inner rant on being an old woman. Don't worry Max, you're only twenty, not fifty," she answered everyone's unspoken question. Iggy and Gazzy laughed at me. But what Angel had said...fifty.

"Angel, you're going to give this old woman a heart-attack some day!" I yelled at her. Everyone burst out laughing and I glared at them

"So what did you come here to originally discuss?" Jeb asked calmly, while the others continued on laughing.

"What do we do next?" I asked him. He raised an eyebrow.

"Why don't you ask that voice of yours?" he asked.

"I'm too scared," I said seriously.

"Ok then. The world has long forgotten the great Maximum Ride and her infamous flock. Nowadays, you're not even a bedtime story. Which, I might add, is a good thing. You need to stop the reformed Itex- now called _Britt Maxicom_-without paparazzi stalking your every move. You've been gone a long time. We don't even have a president anymore- we have a CEO. Britt Maxicom did what Itex failed to do: take over. Now all they need to do is eliminate all the useless civilians."

"So what do you suggest we do?" I asked.

"First, you must let them know that they're not as safe as they thought themselves to be. Let the world know that the great Maximum Ride is back, badder than ever. Now, I don't mean do a TV interview, just let someone catch footage of you beating up some Maxicom goons. Next, you need to find out more about this experiment. The one with the bat wings, I assume you know her?"

"Hell yeah," I mumbled.

"Very well then. Once you have earned back your reputation, come back here to get more instructions."

"You know Jeb, you sound like you've taken down a big company who wants to end the world before," I said.

He grinned at me and said "Who says I haven't?"

**Me: I know it's a little mean leaving you hanging there, but I think you'll get over it**

**Dylan: what if we don't?**

**Me: ...I don't know. Anyway, I want you to meet a friend of mine!**

**Dylan: it's not a gun is it?**

**Me: he's not a gun!**

**Dylan: oh, so he's human...phew**

**Me: well, not exactly**

**Skullduggery: hey ghost!**

**Me: hiya Skul. So watcha up to lately? Figured out that the evil Valkyrie isn't actually Valkyrie but her stupid reflection yet?**

**Skullduggery: ...umm, no. I never thought of that actually. Which, is quite surprising, ecause I think of a lot of things, and most of them tend to be right.**

**Dylan: ...you're a skeleton**

**Skullduggery: a skeleton **_**detective**_

**Me: oh don't mind Dylan, he's very slow**

**Skullduggery: any reason why I'm here? I don't mind the nice chat but...I've got a real Valkyrie to find and a reflection to murder...again.**

**Me: oh yes. You see, I'm currently writing out our crossover with our wonderful Skullduggery in it. It will be released in the new year, or even possibly as a Christmas present.**

**Skullduggery: excellent. Now, if you don't mind, can you please hit that little button that says review?**


	7. weapons

**Me: Sad chapter, this one.**

**Dylan: crap**

**Me: the next one will probably be sad too...but I'm planning to have a bit of humour in it :P**

**Also, go check out **_**The Rose Angel**_** apparently she's made a list of the things I'm not allowed to do (gee, thanks chancy), as well as a few other lists, like what my character's aren't allowed to do...so yeah. I'd also like to thank Chancy, because without her, there would be no hunter, and therefore no CYHAHTF. So there's your thanks and your recommendation, now can you please get off my back chancy?**

Max POV

"Jeb, I've got a little question..." I said.

"Shoot."

"Why is Bridget your _maid!"_ I exclaimed. _I was thinking the same thing,_ thought Fang. I still haven't gotten used to the whole mind reading thing yet, so I turned to look at him, answering his thoughts, rather than his words.

Angel giggled. "Max hasn't gotten used to the whole mind-reading thing yet. As far as I can tell, she can switch the whole mind-reading thing on and off, but sometimes she slips," she explained.

"Well Max, to answer your question, I've got Bridget here because she's a spy. Now don't give me that look! This room is sound-proofed and has no bugs or microphones whatsoever. I've been feeding her false information," Jeb said.

_Oh, _was Nudges response. Well, in her head anyway. Ha! She's speechless!

"I also see you have found a mental connection with your flock, and by that, also receiving their powers," Jeb said thoughtfully. I nodded in response.

"Right-o then, you guys need to get going. You've got to re-save the world, Maximum."

Does anyone know how much I hate that '_save the world Max'_ crap? Let's just say a whole lot. The flock giggled. Damn, I slipped up.

Soon we were out the door and spreading our wings once again. "See ya Jeb," I called. "Wouldn't want to be ya!"

"So guys, you never did explain how you're still alive!" I called to my flock. Dylan started.

"They gave me this drug that knocked me out. Then they replaced the real me with a clone. You were right Max; I never should have gone alone."

"Yeah, with me and Gazzy, they had clones of us which they burned. They then loaded us into the truck with guns to our heads," Iggy continued.

"She really did pluck out all my feathers. It hurt like hell! Then she took some of my blood and put poison on the flowers I bought, which made them smell really disgusting-" Nudge rambled.

"With me," Angel continued, cutting Nudge off, "They gave me a drug that stopped my breathing and made my heartbeat slow down so much, you can't even tell it's there. Once you flew off, they took me."

"Hey, I wonder why we have to let this new company know we're alive, when they've already sent the hunter after us." I wondered out loud.

"Max, the hunter operates solo. She might work for the company, but she's tracking and keeping us without telling Maxicom. She has her own motives that even _I_ don't know," Angel called over the wind.

_Gotcha,_ I thought. I looked down; we were just about at mum's house.

I tucked in my wings so I was freefalling. Oh my god, I haven't done this in forever! There's nothing better than adrenaline rushing through your veins, telling you to pop open your wings before you go splat. I was almost touching the trees, so I let out my wings sharply.

_Ow!_ Note to self: no sudden unfurling.

Ella ran out the back to greet us once again. But this time, she had tears running down her face.

"Max! Hurry! Mum's taken a turn for the worse! She hasn't got long left!" she wailed. The rest of the flock landed behind me and Fang moved to steady me. I gave him a grateful look, then we all moved inside.

Mum was in her bedroom. She was hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor. There was the smell of antiseptic and disinfectant. A doctor was working over some equipment. I growled.

The scientists who made us were brilliant. Yes, I acknowledge the fact, because if they can make a kid have wings, they can do anything. Now, if they put their brilliant minds together for good, rather than evil, WE COULD HAVE A CURE FOR FREAKING CANCER ALREADY!

I went to mum's side and the flock plus Ella followed me. The doctor looked like he wanted to say something, but the look on my face made him change his mind. Mum opened her eyes just a slit.

"Max, dear," she whispered, her voice sounding croaky. Tears pricked my eyes.

"What happened mum?" I whispered. She just shook her head.

"Ella, can you grab the box, please?" mum whispered. Ella disappeared from the room for a moment, and then returned with a massive box in her hands.

"Max, I never told you this, but you are descended from some of the greatest warriors the world has never known. Our family used to be a part of a tribe, a tribe which was feared by others because of our mighty warriors. This was your great-great-great-great grandfather's," she explained, and Ella grabbed something out of the box.

It was a beautiful bow. The wood was a light mahogany colour and there were vines etched into it. The bowstring looked strong, and when I grabbed it and tested it, it was still strong. Ella handed me a quiver of arrows, with white feathered ends. I was speechless.

"Fang," she motioned with her hand, and Ella drew from the box a long throwing knife. Soon the whole flock was issued with weapons: Iggy got a sabre; Nudge, a set of knives for throwing; Gazzy some vials filled with different types of poison; Angel, a sling made of leather; Dylan, a whip with barbed metal ends; and Ella, who got the most recent one- a Berretta 92 ( a semi-automatic handgun). I wonder where mum got that...

"Thank you mum," I whispered, and the flock did the same.

Dr Martinez POV

Once I had given the flock their weapons, my eyesight started dimming and I could feel myself becoming cold. The flock and Ella all hugged me, and I tried hugging them back. For some strange reason, I felt strangely at peace, more than I have in a long time. I was faintly aware of everyone crying, but I was too far gone. _Good bye Ella, good bye flock, good bye Maximum Ride. I love you all._

**Me: ** ***Sobs* **

**Dylan: *Sobs***

**Everyone: *Sobs***

**Me: ah, poor Max just can't get a break...**

**Dylan: Dr M's funeral up next, plus a few extra things...**

**Me: yep. Please R&R, you don't want Dr M to die in vain. **


	8. Reaper

**Me: Hi! I'm ****Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate, but you can call me BOB :)**

**Dylan: uh, will you please stop with that! It's driving me insane!**

**Me: good!**

Max POV

I hate funerals. A lot. Especially if they're for the only mother you've ever known. Right now the flock, Ella and I are at the graveyard, saying our final goodbyes. The casket was lowered into the ground, and everyone was crying.

After the ceremony, everyone was going up to Ella saying how sorry they were. I rolled my eyes. Didn't theses people realise that I was her daughter as well? Oh, right. No one was supposed to know. I ran to the storage room where I kept my bow and arrows. In the day that passed, after mum died, I've been practicing non-stop.

I ran back to the front room, Ella came up behind me and started following me.

The plan was that I was to shoot a flaming arrow through a hoop thing. I took my stance and lit the arrow using my power when no one was looking. By now, everyone had gathered around me. Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

"Umm, you know that hunter person you told me about?" Ella asked. I had no idea where this was going, but I nodded anyway.

"You know how she brown hair?" she asked. I rolled my eyes and adjusted my aim.

"And she has bat-like wings?"

"Not right now, Ella!" I moaned and adjusted my aim, _again._

"And how she has creepy green eyes that seem to follow you everywhere?"

Wait...I didn't tell her that.

"Because she's over there..."

And then I shot the arrow...just not through the hoop. I slung the bow back over my back and ran towards the hill.

On the ground was the hunter, with a flaming arrow through her gut. I looked at her through murderous eyes, and she did the same. Slowly, she stood up. Once she was standing, she pulled the arrow out of her stomach.

"Ha! It'll take more than an arrow to kill me. I just came to express my sorrows for losing your mother. After all, it's not every day that somebody you love dies...for you it's almost like every two days," she sneered, and with that, she took off.

I screamed. I felt extremely hot again and I let my wings out. I whipped my hair back past my face and took a step back.

I jumped. There was no need for a running start. My wings beat powerfully as I searched the skies, but she was already too far gone. My wings were now on fire- literally. I tried to calm myself, but I found that I couldn't.

_Just try and ignore the bloodlust, Maximum__, _the Voice said. Wonderful. Spectacular. Terrific. Just what I wanted- the return of the Voice. Note the extremely heavy sarcasm.

Why did the stupid hunter always run from a fight? _Because she knows she'll lose if she sees your number isn't up. Also, she doesn't want to, or need to kill you._ Huh?

I landed, and the people were staring at me. _Dylan, Nudge, double back to see if she's gone around and is still here,_ I commanded them, using my leader telepathy. They nodded, then left. _Angel, wipe the minds of the witnesses. We don't to reveal ourselves too soon._ I saw her nod slightly, then she stood in front of me.

"You didn't see anything here," she said, her eyes becoming vacant.

"We did not see anything," the family members echoed.

"You will tell no one of this incident if you remember."

"We will tell no one," they echoed again.

"These are not the droids you're looking for," Iggy snickered. I glared at him, using the mental connection, so he could actually _see_ me. He gulped loudly.

Dylan and Nudge came back and signalled that the hunter was gone. Nudge looked around. "Guys, where's Fang?"

Crap. _Fang!_ I called out. I closed my eyes and used the mental connection to see through his eyes. He was in the air, just south of us, fighting the hunter. I gasped. If I didn't have this mental connection with my flock, then I would have thought he left again, but he was helping!

"Guys, follow!" I commanded. I spread my wings and did a running start. I flew to where I saw him and there he was, losing. The hunter had her gun out, and pulled back the safety.

"NO!" I screamed, and sent a wave of fire towards her hand. She dropped the gun suddenly, clutching her hand, glaring at me. She snarled a feral snarl and raced after me.

As soon as she was close enough, I punched her in the face. I anticipated her next move, using my telepathy. In the middle of her round-house kick, I kicked her where her wing met her back, and she screamed. I had kicked the wing joint right out of its socket. Because of her accelerated healing, it was already beginning to set, but not heal. It was setting in the wrong position. _Ouch._ She fell out of the sky, screaming

For the second time in ten minutes, I could feel the heat of fire coursing through me as I dived after the hunter. I heard the faint _smack_ as she hit the ground hard. I landed beside her and kicked her in the face.

"Look at your own reflection, and tell me how many days _you_ have left," I sneered. I kicked her head towards the puddle of water. She shakily stood and looked at her reflection. Her eyes widened and she started shaking.

"I only have one question. Why?" I asked softly, surprising myself. She looked at me.

"You don't know the curse that my gift is. To see how many days you have left with your loved ones. _My_ family had no hope."

"What happened to them?" I asked. So _this_ was her problem? The loss of family would drive anyone insane!

"I killed them." Huh? Freaky hunter girl said _what_ now.

"You killed them?" I choked out. "That's just _sick."_

"I saw their number was up, so I killed them."

She must be some freaky psychopath to kill her own family, just like that. Especially given the way she grew up just like us.

I could see flashes in her head.

_A girl, aged thirteen with cat ears and tail was sitting by a fire. There was a number above her head, a zero. "Come here, Britts," I called. The girl called Britts came over._

"_What's up?" she asked._

"_Nothing much. You just look like you need a hug," I whispered._

_Britts nodded. "You know me so well." She wrapped her arms around me. I slowly pulled her own knife out of her back pocket. She nestled her head under my chin._

"_Thank you, Reaper. You're always so kind and thoughtful. I shrugged._

"_Just doing my job." I then stuck the knife through her neck, killing her instantly. I dropped her body without caring. I heard someone yell in the distance. Britt's twin brother, Farden, came running through the bushes. He saw Britt's body and howled. Above Farden's head, was another zero._

"_What happened Reap?" Farden cried. I put on a fake pained face, then looked at him. _

"_She was sick of being on the run, hiding from life, so she killed herself! As will you," I snarled, then ran towards him and snapped his neck. _

_The last three mutants walked out of the bushes next. One, a tall boy with Razor teeth and scaly skin; a young boy with bluish skin; and an older girl who actually looked normal, except for the fact she had no eyes. They were completely different, with only one thing in common. The each had a zero above their heads._

_As if it was my duty, I sauntered forward to kill them. _

_They had no chance._

(_)

"MAX!" Someone shouted, shaking me awake.

"What happened?" I asked groggily.

"You fainted," Fang said.

"What happened Max? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Gazzy said, with a hint of fear in his voice.

I suddenly connected all the dots. It was the word _ghost_ that did it. All she would need is a black cloak...

"Who?" Angel asked. The others used their connection to me to see what Angel was talking about.

"The hunter?" Iggy asked.

I shook my head.

"Her name isn't hunter. It's _Reaper."_

**This chapter a changed a bit of too, especially Reaper's attitude. I got a new idea for this story so its important that I change it a little so its easier to understand.**

**R&R **


	9. Reincarnate

**I HAVEN'T ABANDONED YOU! These holidays have been extremely busy. I wrote and posted this chapter on my flight to Brisbane –extremely good WiFi up here- it's the only time I can update for a while.**

**Has anybody else noticed that JP has posted the first 23 CHAPTERS OF ANGEL! Go to the Max-Dan-Wiz website and it's pretty much the first thing you see. Or, ya know, you could just click on the link on my profile...**

Max POV

I opened my telepathic connection to the flock and replayed what I saw in Reaper's mind.

"That is just _sick!_" Iggy exclaimed. All I could do was nod.

"Why would she want to kill her family?" Nudge asked quietly.

I shrugged. "I dunno Nudge. It's evil on all kinds of levels."

"Well," Gazzy said, his easy-going attitude was getting a little unnerving. "All she's missing is the cloak, the skeleton body and a scythe. The three most important parts of the grim reaper, so it can't _really _be her, can it?"

"She sure of hell is," Fang mumbled quietly. Dylan glared at him.

"C'mon guys, we gotta blow this joint, before it's swarmed with erasers and M-geeks and whatever else this _Britt Maxicom_ has come up with," I ordered, and we all spread and took off at this same time.

"So Max, does Reaper have her own School or something?" Nudge called.

"I guess so," I answered.

"Hey, don't you think that _Maxicom_ sounds a lot like _Maximum_? Why would they name the big evil company something that sounds so much like _your_ name?" she asked.

_It's because they're humiliating you, naming something after the world's lost greatest defender._

"The voice says it's because they're trying to humiliate me, that naming it after the world's lost defender."

Nudge frowned. "That's just plain mean!"

I scoffed. "Nudge sweetie, these people are planning to eliminate ninety percent of the world's population, and you think naming their damn company after me is _mean?_ If anything, I feel honoured."

Nudge pondered this for a few moments. _You're right, _she thought. I sent her a look saying 'aren't I always?'

"So Max: where are we going?" Dylan asked, gliding next to me.

"To see Jeb," I said.

It was a relatively short flight, but the day's events had taken their toll on me. We landed but kept our wings out. Again, Bridget lead us into the same room we were in last time, and Jeb was surprised by appearance.

"So I take it you were successful in finding out about that experiment, then?" he asked.

"Yeah...little problem with that..." I mumbled. Jeb raised an eyebrow in question. "Well, you see...That experiment is pretty much neutral ground. She's not just _their_ assassin, but also _ours_, in a way. She's pretty much a Grim Reaper reincarnate."

Jeb paled and plopped down onto the chair. I tried reading his mind but it was like trying to run through a brick wall: hard and painful. "Er, Daddy-O? Care to explain your reaction?"

He sighed. "Everyone had better take a seat." Once we were all in a chair, he started. "Well, as you know, the flock are not the only successful experiments. In fact, you are the 57th mutant generation. But there was one other recombinant in your generation that we kept separated from you. She was a vampire-bat/human hybrid. At first we thought she was a normal recombinant, but then we realised that she had the power to detect life forces, which is basically the same thing as reading minds, but more concentrated on certain points.

"She could tell you what type of personality you had, your IQ, even who your soul-mate was! But she also had the power to anticipate death, and also means of executing it. She was trained to kill in ways that most experienced assassins wouldn't dream of trying. I was hoping that she died when they were exterminating the mutants back in Germany.

"So you're right. She pretty much is the grim reaper reincarnate."

**So...yeah. EXTREMELY short chapter 'cause my brain is fried. **

**Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: Dylan's pipe bomb that I got him for Christmas blew up on Christmas eve and I was too slack to make a new one, so I just got him an atomic bomb instead. So I'm still trying to piece him back together. **

**So every review goes to the Putting-Dylan-back-together-so-we-can-torture-him-again appeal.**

**Oh, as I said before, the first 23 chapters of ANGEL are up. That 57****th**** generation thing actually belongs to JP. If you want to read it, the link is on my profile.**


	10. Britt Maxicom

**BRITT MAXICOM_**

Shane Snowe, CEO of _Britt Maxicom_, was going through yet another pile of paperwork when his secretary hit the intercom.

"_Sir, there is someone here to see you. She didn't give a name, she only said that it was important."_

Snowe sighed before hitting the buzzer. "Send her in."

The door opened and a tall red-head entered the large office. "Ah, Bridget. What news do you have?"

The woman sighed. "Jeb's daughter returned. They were talking about some out-of-control experiment. Reaper, I think they called it," Bridget said, not giving him the whole truth. After all, she didn't want to betray _her_ Fang, but she knew if the flock went down, he went down with them.

Snowe, however, paled. "Out of control? I thought it was on our side?"

"Negative, sir. It's on no one's side."

"What about this daughter? Is she a threat?" Snowe asked.

"She most definitely is," she said, not caring about betraying Max.

"Send the sentinels after her. We need to eliminate all threats," Snowe ordered. Bridget bowed her head and quickly left the room. Snowe turned back to his paperwork and other ways to control the puppet of a president.

**MAX_**

Do you ever feel like something is going to go wrong? It's not one of those 'Reaper-probably-is-going-to-show-up-and-do-something-phsycopathic-and-evil' feelings, more like 'evil-organizations-are-out-to-get-us-again' type feelings.

_Keep on your guard. Something is going to happen._

_Uh…a little detail please?_

But as usual, the voice didn't respond. I opened my mind and used my 'flock telepathy'. 'Hey guys, I have a feeling-'

'_That tonight's gonna be a good night!'_ Gazzy thought, and I ignored it.

'-that something's gonna happen. I just got a warning from the voice to be on our guard.'

'_Sure thing, Max'_ Nudge thought.

'_Gotcha'_ Iggy practically _smirked._ One day that boy is gonna get it!

Dylan smiled at me, and I hate to admit it, but he is kinda hot. '_Don't worry, Max. I'll protect you.'_ And THAT, my friends, is the reason I am not with Dylan.

Fang looked at me. _'What's wrong?'_

'Dylan, the Flock, our whole situation…do you want to be a little more specific?'

'_Why don't we grab something to eat? I'm pretty sure the others are getting hungry,'_ was his brilliant response.

I rolled my eyes. "YO FLOCK! LANDING TIME!" I yelled. It's pretty convenient we were flying over a city at that certain time, eh?

You know the drill: we landed silently, tucked in our wings so hard they felt like they were gonna snap off our backs, found a fast-food joint, ordered enough to clean them out for the next month and got people staring at us. Now wanna hear the thing that doesn't happen every time? They gassed the place, and before I was knocked out, I felt my hands being cuffed behind my back.

…

I woke up in a shmancy office that was so clean I felt that even one of my hairs touched anything, it would all be contaminated and the cleaners would have a fit.

"Maxine Batchelder…" said the tall guy behind a shmancy desk. I raised my eyebrow at him. _Maxine Batchelder?_ He looked in his late thirties with ginger hair and dull grey eyes. "I'm Shane Snowe, CEO of _Britt Maxicom-"_

"And pretty much ruler of the world," I finished. He looked a little angry I interrupted him. I guess Mr-Ruler-guy wasn't a patient man.

"I hear you are the daughter of Jeb Batchelder, a scientist I used to work with," Mr Snowe said. I snorted.

"I've always hated politicians and 'world leaders', and now you've made me hate you even more. I have a thing against scientists."

Snowe looked thoughtful. "Would you perhaps consider joining our cause?" he asked. I snorted again.

"Gee, you really _have_ forgotten about me, haven't you?" I asked. He raised his eyebrows.

"I can't say I've ever met you, a beautiful seventeen year old girl," Snowe said, obviously trying to go for flattery.

"Whatever. So what does _Britt Maxicom_ do? Other than take over the world? Eliminate half the world's population?" I asked innocently.

He seemed mildly impressed. "Very perceptive, Miss Batchelder."

I smirked at his cluelessness. "Hardly. But I thought you would learn from Itex's mistake: there will always be someone who rebel and try and stop you." I replied scathingly.

"And that someone is? You? I can hardly see what one teenage girl could do to stop a whole company," he sneered.

I rolled my eyes. "What about my friends?"

"Petty humans can do nothing to stop us!" he screamed hysterically.

"And you're _not_ a 'petty human'? Someone's head is getting a little big, isn't it?" I asked innocently.

"Stop! You have wasted too much of my time!" he screamed.

I glared at the idiot who was supposedly the ruler of the world. "You're the one who brought me here in the first place!"

His hand came up and was just about to hit me, but thanks to my super-fast reflexes, I ducked just in time. I tried twisting my hands out of what they were tied up in, but I hissed in pain when it cut into my wrists. I turned my head quickly and saw they used barbed wire. Damn, why didn't I feel it earlier?

"Security!" Mr-important-leader-guy yelled. Two big brainless-looking idiots came running in. "Take her to the cells!"

The security guards grabbed me roughly and pulled me up. Just as they were about to drag me out of the room, the window smashed and someone rolled in quickly. My heart soared, thinking it was one of the flock. It dropped quickly when I saw it was Reaper. She kicked the first guard on the knee-cap as hard as she could and I swear you could hear the crack all the way from Australia. His leg was bent _way_ back the wrong way. The guard screamed out in pain and dropped to the floor.

She then got out her gun and shot the other guard at his shoulder joint, effectively taking him out. She then turned to me and my heart sank to my feet. I snarled at her but she didn't seem to notice. Instead, she reloaded her gun and shot it again.

I waited for the inevitable pain, but it never came. Instead, I realised she shot my hands free.

"Get out of here Maximum!" she told me, and I didn't need to be told twice. I shot one last look at Shane Snowe before jumping out the window Reaper came through and unfurling my wings. I used my flock telepathy to find the direction the flock was and set off towards them.

I only had one question running through my head the whole journey: _what the hell just happened?_

**REAPER_**

I know, I know. I'm supposed to be the bad guy, and therefore not save the good guy. But I can't help it! I have a saving people complex! Now before you completely go off your tree and call me insane, let me explain.

I'm not a sadistic killer who takes away people's families for absolutely no reason. I _save_ them, and it's not in a twisted way either. I guess I should start in the beginning. My power is a curse. I can read auras. That basically means I can get all your basic info from a glance, and I'm not talking about addresses and phone numbers. Take the guy I just shot in the shoulder for example:

Dean Finnigan, thirty-two, IQ of 32 (below average), still lives with his mom, born on the twenty-eighth of March, death date is the twent-fifth of July, 2022- eleven years from now, from cancer that is already infecting his arm. Has the personality of a wet sock, needs to follow orders of some kind and is currently feeling pain and hatred, towards the person who shot his shoulder…Oh, right.

See? I can get all that in one glance. And people wonder why I don't like going out in public…

Before I could understand this power, little numbers used to appear above everyone's head, with the amount of days they had left, and I used to have to feel how they would die… yeah, most of the time it's painful, and that's why I'm now practically immune to pain.

Now I'll tell you the story of my little 'Flock'. Britts was the first person I killed, and it hurt me to do it. I realised the white-coats injected her with a virus, one that gave them a personal uplink to Britts. She was unknowingly their eyes and ears. But I didn't kill her because of that. I killed her because the virus would've eventually moved to her heart via her bloodstream, and the white-coats would torture her to death with it. Trust me, she would've died painfully. The stab in the neck was a luxury.

I killed the others for similar reasons. Farden (Britts' twin) was injected with the same virus. They gave the other's different types of cancers, to see if they could survive them. I don't think I have to say that they wouldn't. Remember the swine flu epidemic? Turns out the white-coats started that. That's all they injected _me_ with, so all I got was a harmless cold.

Now…the time I spent with Britt Maxicom wasn't my own choice. The white-coats captured me and put an electric collar around my neck that would shock me until I did whatever they needed done. They didn't tell their precious boss that, so that's why he was so surprised when I came back under my own control just then, and I mean, like, five seconds before saving Max.

Faith was the help that hurt me the most. When I captured her, instead of handing her over to that sadist, Ter Borch, I spent time with her in my free time. She was the only one I told everything to, and the only one who knew I was being controlled. During the time spent with her, I started to realise that her DNA was unravelling. It was an unhealthy mix of bird, human, Max and Fang. She was literally falling to pieces. She was the one who suggested that I shoot her, to keep me safe. She was a smart three-year-old, one that I would never forget. I still have no idea how she kept it from the flock, and especially Fang, once the flock connection was finally established.

I know the flock will never forgive me. Yeah, it's the sad truth, but the truth nonetheless. I mean, _I_ wouldn't forgive me either, even if I knew the reasons. I'll leave you wondering why I saved Max, I mean, I'm not just going to start gushing heart out to complete strangers.

I'll tell you eventually what Britt Maxicom has planned, but that would take too long, so you'll just have to see for yourself.

-_Reaper"_

I put down my pen and put my journal in my pack. Hopefully after I'm _long_ gone, someone in the flock will find it and hopefully forgive me eventually in the eternity they have.

I stretched my arms and stood up. I retied my hair back into a scruffy ponytail and straightened my shirt. I opened the bat-like wings that _so_ did not help with the 'Grim Reaper' image I'm trying to discourage.

It's time to find Jeb, and I hope I'm not too late.

**Yeah! It's done! And it only took five months!**

**Dylan: yeah…not something to be proud of…**

**Me: whatever. Anywho, SOooooo so so so so so so so so so so so sooooooo sorry I haven't updated!**

**Dylan: quit grovelling *yawns***

**Me: shut up! Anyway, I reread this and I decided I wanted to go in a completely different direction, so I revised this, changed a few subtle things and fixed up a few mistakes. Now it should be a little easier to read.**

**My next update will most definitely be quicker than my last, but until then folks!**

**R&R! (:**


	11. Family moments

**MY BRAIN WAS ABDUCTED BY ALIENS AND DISECTED AND THEN FED TO CREEPY ALIEN DOGS! …so I enlisted someone to help me with this story! Say hi to **_**The Rose Angel**_**!**

**TRA: call me chancey…and I thought you said you were paying me!**

**Dylan: HA! BURNED!**

**Me: just ignore him… uh, you can be the first to kill Dylan in the new 'ways to kill Dylan' bonus chapter?**

**Chancey: DEAL! :D**

**Me: aaaanywhooo! On with the Chapter!**

**MAX_**

Okay… Possibly one of the weirdest things that has ever happened. It happened a week ago, and I still can't get over it. The flock couldn't believe it either, but they got over it quickly. But they weren't _there._ She had genuine concern in her cold eyes. The reunion with the flock was certainly eventful:

_My wings hurt slightly, the barbed wire had scraped against the thin membrane of skin beneath the feathers. I had figured out that even though our flock telepathy didn't work across the length of America (as they were on one coast and I was on the other), I could still locate them. Once I got in range, I was bombarded with thoughts._

'_MAX! Maxmaxmaxmax MAX! Where were you? What happened? We were so worried! Are you injured? How far away are you-'_

'_Let her breathe, Nudge. Max, Fang has been doing a good job leading us for the past week, but I convinced him to stay.'_

'_Thanks, Angie. Wait- week?'_

'_Yeah, you've been missing for a week! I- I mean we, were so worried about you!'_

'_Gee, thanks, Dylan,' I thought dryly. 'So were you all good for Fang?'_

'_Stop talking to us like we're little kids!'_

'_You ARE a little kid, Iggy. Emphasis on "little."'_

'_FANG! There are not so innocent kids listening!'_

_I could almost feel him smirking from here. 'Sorry. So how did you escape? The badass way, or were you just lucky like normal?'_

'_Uh… I guess you could call it luck.' I was a bit hesitant to tell them that our enemy helped me escape. It was different to how Ari saved us, because we knew the innocent little kid before the monster. As for Reaper, we only know the monster._

'_Tell us Max! Maaaaaaax? Tell me! We want to know! Pretty please? With sprinkles and dead Reaper on top!' I winced at Nudge's last words. _

'_Uh… Reaper saved me.'_

'_WHAT!' seven different voices yelled._

'_Oh, hello Total. And yes, you heard right. The heartless killer saved the helpless birdie.' Nudge's thoughts dropped off for a second as Nudge fainted. I could hear Fang..er…swearing his head off, Dylan was confused and trying to think of ways to protect me from the big bad bat, Iggy and Gazzy accidently slipped up in the bomb they were making and it exploded in their face, causing Nudge to wake up and laugh at them. Angel was… being Angel. She didn't seem at all worried or shocked, which concerned me a little. _

'_Max, show the memory to us, maybe that'll help them to understand better,' Angel thought._

_I showed them the memory, once I was finished they were all shocked silent. Well… except for Angel. But as I said: Angel is… Angel._

'_I'm about an hour's flight away from you guys, I'll talk then. Stay put and behave!'_

_When I got to the flock I was literally suffocated with hugs. It took Iggy and Fang to get them off before I could breathe again. Dylan actually had the nerve to kiss me on the lips. I made sure he wasn't able to have kids anytime soon, and as far as I could tell, he was still knocked out._

As you can see…it was hectic. We were moving towards the branch of Britt Maxicom that I was held captive. You know, I'm still flattered that they named their company after me. But all that aside, they are EVIL. With a capitol E! Okay, I'm exaggerating now. Great, I'm turning into Nudge.

We landed for the night after a couple more hours of flying. Why couldn't the rest of the flock have super-speed? I got out my bow and shot down a few birds for dinner…we were eating like kings tonight!

"CANABILISM!" Gazzy yelled, his eyes wide with fake fear. I rolled my eyes at his childishness.

"When you gotta eat, you gotta eat. Unless you don't want any…" I trailed off. He shut up quickly. But then Iggy decided to pick up where Gazzy left off.

He held up a bird that we hadn't plucked and prepared yet. It's head flopped onto his shoulder, and he had one arm around it's body and one arm holding it's wing like you would a hand. "But Max! This could've been my brother!" He whined. "How could you?"

I glared at him –which obviously didn't work. So I decided a different tact. I used my flame power to burn off all the feathers on the bird and turned it into a small crispy chicken. He dropped in surprise, but then screwed up his face. "NOOOOOO! Don't worry, Bro, I'll avenge your death!"

Then Gazzy used his ventriloquism and made his voice raspy. "Do not fret, my dear brother. Next time she gets another Mickey Mouse Alarm clock, you can blow it up like you did the others…"

My eyes widened and Iggy hissed at him. "IDIOT! She didn't expect us!"

Gazzy decided his shoes looked very interesting. "Oops," he squeaked.

I growled at them both. "You better run," I hissed at them, and they were off.

They immediately hid behind Fang, hoping I would take mercy on them if they used Fang as a barrier. I wouldn't. He raised an eyebrow at me. His way of asking 'what the hell?'

"Save us, oh mighty F-Nick! Save us from the scary dragon, known as Maaaaaaaaaaax! Oh, and don't forget to make the Maaaaaaaaaax nice and long." Iggy whispered to him, clutching at his hand.

Fang yanked his hand out of his grip and glared at Iggy and Gazzy. "You know how wrong that sounds, right? And go use someone else as a shield, I quit."

Gazzy scowled at him and used a big-boss sort of voice. "YOU DIDN'T! I FIRED YOU!" He shouted. Nudge and Angel, who were watching the proceedings, giggled behind their hands.

This would have been a wonderful flock moment…if we weren't just ambushed. These…things came out of the bushes. They looked like something out of a horror/sci-fi movie…actually, they looked like those big metal suits that the humans control in AVATAR, only these ones didn't have humans controlling them.

"Battle positions!" I yelled to the flock. It was our not-so-code word for 'kick the crap out of these guys!' There were only three of them, but they were _massive_. I didn't know how we didn't see them earlier! I teamed up with Fang, and we started flying around one, looking for weaknesses. I shot arrows into the spaces between armour, but they seemed to have no effect. I then used flaming arrows, but that made no difference either.

Fang was kicking and stabbing around the 'ankles', looking for weaknesses there. I looked over and saw Gazzy and Iggy trying to blow up one, but once the smoke cleared, there wasn't a scratch. The machine things were trying to grab at us, not wanting to kill us for some reason. So it was capture and not kill? I could handle that.

"Max!" Angel yelled. "I can't control them! And Nudge can't mess with them 'cause they have some sort of block on the magnetic particles!" Crap.

I was about to call retreat, but then I spotted something. It was a small hatch, under one of the 'arms.' It was probably used for fixing up the internals or something. I had a plan. "Gazzy! Chuck me a small bomb!" I yelled. He looked at me like I was crazy, but chucked me one anyway. "Fang, try and keep this arm up and out of the way!" I yelled, pointing to the arm that was currently trying to grab me.

Fang kicked at one of the fingers, and seeing my chance, I struck. I used my super-speed to fly under the arm and kick open the hatch. I set the detonator and threw it in. I then flew up as fast as I could, grabbing Fang along the way. There was a muffled 'BOOM', and the big machine just…collapsed.

We quickly went to work on the other ones, helping the flock out. Within ten minutes, all that was left was a pile of scrap metal.

"Report," I said, breathing hard as adrenaline still coursed through my veins.

"A gash on my arm, but it'll heal quickly," said Angel. She looked like she had before the fight, other than the big gash on her arm. I raised my eyebrow at her and I resolved to get Iggy to look after it.

"Er, I'm low on bombs, but that's about it." Iggy said. Gazzy nodded in agreement.

Nudge was lying on the ground, her chest heaving melodramatically. "I'm good… just a little out of shape…" she sighed.

"I'm fine." Three guess at who that was, but I think you'd only need one. Fang turned to me and raised his eyebrow. '_What about you?'_ he thought.

'_I'm fine. Just a little tired, and I didn't want to use the flock's powers, because let's face it, I probably wouldn't be able to use them properly in a fight and in this particular on I don't want to be caught unaware,' _I sent to him. I saw him drop his head slightly, his version of a nod.

The bushes ruffled to the left of us, and we all turned to face it in fighting stance. Fang and Iggy were on my flanks, and the others were covering us from behind. Out of the bushes stepped a fit looking man in combat boots, camo pants and an army shirt. He had a massive gun over his shoulder. He looked fit, like _super-soldier _fit.

"So..." he said. "The plan was to capture only the girl, but you destroyed my units-" at this he nodded at the piles of scraps "-and so now I'll take revenge on _all_ of you. I'm sure boss would understand." We all started backing away slowly, but apparently not slowly enough, because he saw us. "Say bye-bye kiddies!" He yelled with glee in his eyes and loaded the _rocket launcher._ We had no hope of getting out of there before he fired.

But then another weird thing happened: just as he was about to pull the trigger, he stumbled forward and landed on his face. On his back was a spreading patch of red. I looked up to the direction the shot should've come from, and for a second I saw a flash of brown hair.

"Whoa…he was assassinated!" Gazzy breathed. "Best. Luck. EVER!"

"Gazzy, don't you think?" snapped Nudge, extremely out of character. "Maybe the reason he was assassinated was because he was going to kill us! More specifically Max! And didn't you hear him? They want her _alive_. They don't care about the rest of us!"

"And we all agree that it's a good thing they're only after me. It means you shouldn't be in as much dang- hey, where's Dylan?" I asked suddenly, noticing his missing presence. The others shrugged, but Fang had a hopeful glint in his eye. I didn't have to be a mind reader to tell what he was thinking, so I slapped the back of his head. He shouldn't be think murderous thoughts about a flock member…even annoying flock members who just don't know when to stop.

Again, the bushes rustled, but this time Dylan stumbled out.

"_Where were you?"_ I said dangerously calm.

Dylan began to shift slightly and blushed. "Uh, nature called."

I tried reading his mind, but his thoughts all seemed like a jumbled mess that no one could makes sense of. I looked over at Angel and I could tell she was having the same problem. I turned back to him and snarled.

"Oh that's nice. You and nature must be very good friends after all that time…" I growled. Hmm, growling and snarling. I must be turning into a type of big cat or something. He just looked at me, confusion in those horribly alluring eyes. I grumbled under my breath, but Fang and Iggy heard me as they were close, and laughed at some of the more creative names I called Dylan.

"We'll head further into the forest until we find another clearing, from which we'll take off. We'll stop at the next town to eat, I promise," I ordered them. The flock grumbled a bit but they knew the risks of staying here. We packed away our stuff in record time and headed off quickly.

During our night-time trek in the forest, I saw something. It was a tattered journal, the same type that the white-coats back at the school used for writing their notes about experiments in. I picked it up and flipped through the pages quickly, not reading it. Most of it was full, with a few pages toward the back empty. In the back cover, I noticed a little not in an untidy scrawl: _property of Belladonna Shrine._ I closed it and put it in my pack, promising myself that I would read it later. It looked like it contained valuable information.

**Me: valuable information, you say? We'll see about that!**

**Chancey: What are you planning?**

**Me: I'm planning on making a toasted ham and cheese sandwich once I'm done with this. I'm also changing this story from Mystery/hurt/comfort to adventure/action/humour. 'Cause lets face it. I can't write mystery and drama to save my life, and my humorous side always slips through…**

**Dylan: I think she meant with the chapters…**

**Me: *grins evilly at Dylan* you'll see, young grasshopper! But I will tell you that the next chapter will be Reaper centric, but this will NOT be a Reaper centric fic. She's more of a side character that helps the story along. If it wasn't for her, I'd be stuck on the first line of the first chapter. :)**

**Chancey: *in announcer voice* So who is Belladonna Shrine? And What will Reaper do next? And who was that obvious person who saved Max in a cliché moment? Tune in next time for the answers to all those questions!**

**Me: *claps* well done! Oh yeah, don't forget to review! I'm not going to bribe you with virtual **_**anything**_**, because lets face it, in the end we get virtual **_**nothing **_**:( so just review because you want to! Love ya all! Good bye from the wonderful land of AUS! (heh, I like WICKED, gimme a break).**


	12. 21 Guns

**Yay! A longer chapter! This'll be the one and **_**ONLY**_** OC-centric-sorta chapter. I can't really stand OC stories where the OC is the main character and takes Max's place, or becomes more powerful than everyone else… except if its "Her Twins" by ****Tenshi of Light21.**** I LOVE THAT STORY! It's a Transformers one, so if you like Transformers, you'll like this one! Especially if you like Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. But anyway, getting off track here. How's everyone going with their exams? Right now I'm doing my last year of NAPLAN, so I can't wait till its over! :D On with the story!**

**MAX_**

Flying is boring when you're flying in one direction and you're not playing any games 'cause you're trying to get to you destination quickly… Ooh! I got it! The cure to boredom! I swung my pack to the front and grabbed the ITEX journal.

'_What are you doing?' _Fang thought, concerned.

'I'm gonna read, 'cause I'm bored.'

Fang flew up to my side and looked at me funny, like I was insane. '_Reading…while flying.'_

I grinned at him. 'Yep! I'm a girl, so I can multitask! _And_ I'm an advanced being, so I _should_ be able to read while flying.' And with that, I closed off the link to the flock. If there were gruesome notes made by the whitecoats, I didn't want them reading it through my thoughts.

_Journal Entry 1. Date: unknown._

_The nice white-coat taught me how to read and write a few weeks ago, and he gave me this journal to practise. It's really easy and apparently I'm a natural. But he told me to keep it secret. If the others found this, they'll burn it._

So it was an experiment? And who was this 'nice' white-coat?

_There are no other experiments in my wing, but everytime a white-coat comes in, I get a weird feeling, like I can tell _who_ they are…_

_The white-coats are coming! Gotta hide! …ok, you can't really hide in a cage, but it's the thought that counts._

I skipped the next few pages, because they were similar to the first. As far as I could tell, they had the same upbringing as us. I stopped on one of the pages, just because it reminded me of what they did to Iggy.

_Journal Entry 23. Date: unknown._

_Today the monsters took me into surgery. They kept saying something about receptors and nerves. They didn't even make sure the anaesthetic was working and I was asleep before they started. It… hurt. That's the thing though, whatever they did, they cut off my pain receptors, but I don't think it was on purpose. I think they were trying to amplify it or something… now I can't feel it when they stick me with needles, or make me fly in the wind tunnel for five hours, or the erasers when they come to get me and their claws dig into my skin so hard it bleeds…all of this in one day. I'm not sure if it's a blessing or a curse that they got rid of my pain. It'll probably mean they'll make me work harder. I'm not so sure if I'll make it if they keep testing me like that._

That…was cruel…and disturbing! Whenever they put _us_ through surgery, they made sure we were asleep first. It's like the movie Autopsy… I shivered even thinking about it. I flipped through a few more pages, different stuff catching my eye.

_Journal Entry 34: Date unknown_

_Today…something happened. I mean, something worth writing about. Something weird happened to me a week ago, and now I can see…numbers. Everyone has one. And names, and ages. I can actually understand it now, the weird feeling that I get when I look at everyone. I also understand the numbers…_

_A white-coat came to get me, but he was different to the others: he had a zero. He tried dragging me off, but an experiment escaped it's cage. It ran straight at me, but I ducked, so it hit the white-coat. In the end, he bled to death and they killed the experiment…. Those numbers, they represent life._

I shuddered again. This journal was bringing back too many memories for my liking but I couldn't stop reading. I wonder if she ever made it out alive, but something in my mind was reminding me of something that was all too familiar…

_Journal Entry 51. Date: Unknown._

_Today the whitecoats took me into another white room. The only thing in it was a girl, who looked a little older than me. The white-coats kept muttering about 'social interpretations and actions.' They kept looking at me like I wasn't going to come out alive…The girl was nice, for someone who was obviously an experiment. She even gave me a name!_

As I read on, my eyes widened and I got flashbacks of that day… the girl was me! I hadn't thought about that day in a long time. It was about a week before Jeb busted us out. I was ten around that time.

_::FLASHBACK::_

The stupid, smelly Erasers tossed me into an empty room, with nothing it whatsoever! Oh I am _so_ going to give them hell going back to my cage!

They opened the door again but before I could go punch one they chucked in a girl who looked a little younger than me, around Fang or Iggy's age. Was I supposed to fight her or something? 'Cause I WON'T!...stupid whitecoats…

The girl stood up and brushed her long brown hair behind her ear. Her eyes were a creepy green, that had a glazed look. They weren't like Iggy's, but I got a feeling she was only using her eyes as a backup sense. When those eyes met mine, they widened. She stared at me for a while and I started getting grumpy 'cause we were just sitting around not doing anything!

"So watcha name?" I asked her finally, and she gave me a funny look.

"Umm…experi-" she tried answering but I cut her off.

"No, not your code! Your name!" I said impatiently. She blushed and became very interested with the floor.

"Don't have one," she mumbled. I smiled sadly. Everyone has to have a name! I named Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy and baby Angel!

I smiled at her. "Well, how about we give ya one!" I said. Coming up with names is fun!

The girl seemed amazed and looked up to me again. "You can do that? Do _you_ have a name?" she asked a little sceptically. I straightened my back and gave her a mischievous grin.

I snapped my pretty wings out and saluted her. "Maximum Ride, at your service!" I said happily. Her eyes widened again (now they were the size of the bottom of a beaker) at my name, and she shook her head. She looked at my wings again in awe but I didn't snap my wings in. "So… do you have wings?" I asked.

She straightened up and turned as red as blood (or as a tomato as Jeb would say… what's a tomato?). "Yeah, but they're not as pretty as yours. Mine are ugly," the girl sighed.

I tsked at her and told her something that Jeb had once told me when I was jealous of Fang's pure black wings. "All wings are unique and are what make you special and uniquely you. They're all beautiful in their own way." The girl –I really gotta find her a name- sighed and looked me in the eye. She looked like she was about to take on one hundred Erasers alone. She fiddled with her shirt slightly and slowly let out her wings.

They were different to mine and the others'. They had no feathers! At all! At first I thought they weren't wings. But they were: bat wings. They were cool, and made her look… evil. Not whitecoat or Eraser evil, but just evil in a Muah hahaha kind of way. "They're cool!' I told her, and she smiled a little. Just as she was about to reply, a bell chimed outside. The girl twisted her face in a horribly familiar expression and she tried covering her ears. When the bell stopped, I noticed tears running down her face.

"What was that?" I asked kindly.

"I hear like bats do. I think they call it echolocation. It's really good for getting around, but bells are painful." She said and I got a sudden idea.

"Bells," I said, and she gave me a 'that's what I just said' look. "Your name should be Bells!" She gave me another disbelieving look. "What? I named Fang 'Fang' because an Eraser bit him when we were younger. He bit him back of course and even drew blood! Iggy has his name 'cause when he was little he couldn't pronounce 'ig' words like 'ignite' or 'igloo'. It seems to fit that your name should be Bells because bells are what stop you!"

Bells looked like she wanted to say something, but at that moment, the Erasers came back in and grabbed her. They took her away and they sent Jeb in to take me to my cage. This time he took me a different route, pointing out random doors. I managed to look into one and I realised that they all held a _glass window_. We were going to escape

All thought of Bells was forgotten.

::End::

How could we? How could _I?_ We were planning our escape and I completely forgot about Bells! I felt so guilty…

_So, here I am, the newly named 'Bells.' Already the Erasers were teasing me about it, calling me 'Batty Bells.' Yeah, I know, lame. But there was something behind their eyes when they teased me, something that wasn't normally there…Jealousy! They were jealous I had a name but they didn't have names themselves! The whitecoats deemed them too unimportant to have a name and they claimed they didn't live long enough to need one anyway. So I suggested they named themselves. They looked stunned that they hadn't thought of that and left quickly. I swear I even saw one smile at me…it wasn't a creepy smile either._

_So, this is 'Bells' signing out._

The next few pages were rumpled, like the journal had fallen open and it was shaken around in a bag. When the pages smoothed out enough for Bells to write in again, I noticed she had used a different pen. She was on the run, she had escaped. I let out a sigh of relief.

I didn't really think about the other experiments when we left the school, I was so preoccupied by our own freedom. I imagine that the repercussions of us escaping would have been bad and they would have definitely taken it out on the other experiments.

I read through a bit more, how she met up with a few more experiments and they made their own 'pack.' The names were all too familiar though: Britts, Farden… they were the names of the twins that _Reaper_ killed. It all started clicking into place. Of _course_ Bells had to be Reaper, that much was obvious, but why did she change? Why did she start killing?

I flicked through until I spotted an entry that caught my eye. The writing was different, neater. It had obviously been around a year or two since she had written something.

_Journal Entry 68. Date: Unknown_

_Belladonna.  
It's a funny thing. In the middle-ages apparently they used it for surgery. A bit later they used it in beauty items. I guess that's where the name comes from: "beautiful woman." But every now and then, someone forgets the fact that it can be deadly in high doses and give you pretty bad hallucinations. Triyan, former third-in-command is_ _the reason why I'm writing about poisons in my journal four years after I wrote my last entry…guess I've been busy. But back to the story._

_Triyan cornered me one night, and I could read his intentions. I shot him down before he got started. He was mad and he reached for his knife. Guess he wasn't used to people turning him down. Whatever. He was a jerk anyway. And yes, I did write _was_. He shoved me down on the ground and started advancing on me. The only things around were a few plants. Belladonna was one of them. I grabbed some of the leaves and berry and forced some in his mouth. Umm, can I say I didn't know it was Belladonna in the first place? _

_He started chucking them back up and glared at me. He ran back to the rest of the pack and told them he was leaving. The others didn't take it well. Because of the hallucogen in the Belladonna, before he died, he was the equivalent of a rabid dog. Of course, I was the only one who knew he died in the first place. It was either him or me, and I chose the obvious._

_I looked back at my hands an hour after Triyan 'left'. They had rashed up, which was…odd. As far as I knew, Belladonna didn't cause rash, and I was supposed to be immune to that kind of thing anyway. It didn't hurt, obviously, but if you were normal…maybe._

_I thought about an incident four years ago, my naming. Back then, Bells were the only things that stopped me. Two years ago, I gave myself the last name Shrine, because I was able to see death. But bells aren't the only things that hurt me anymore. I realised something that I hadn't realised in a long time…I am mortal. Belladonna helped me realise that. Was it a coincidence that my name and the plant are similar? Probably not, but I of all people realise that fate shouldn't be ignored._

_-Belladonna Shrine._

That made me realise something too. I may be immortal, but as I once had to tell Gazzy, we weren't indestructible. We were human in anything but DNA. Flying makes you forget that fact, and you always put yourself up higher and mightier than you actually are. You look down on others –literally and figuratively. I always think about you poor _humans_ who can't fly. But… we're human too. And being human wasn't about DNA, it was about feelings, emotion, _family._

_Journal Entry 70. Date: some time in August._

_Random note: have you ever heard the song 21 guns by Greenday? It talks about surrendering a fight that doesn't need to be fought, or surrendering a fight that you will most likely lose, but the lyrics…the lyrics are amazing. The song pretty much relates to my life. I'm always surrendering, always choosing the 'flight' instinct out of the choice of fight of flight. But it's always for a good cause. Sometimes it's to call a truce between us and the Erasers- who always seem to agree, ever since I suggested naming themselves, and therefor telling them they were human too. Sometimes it's to help others with injuries. But we always fight the fights worth fighting, and that's another part of the song. You can fight, but sometimes it's worth surrendering. Just a random thought._

_Now guess what! I have a new nick-name! Britts found out about my power to sense life and death amongst other things. She said it reminded her of the grim reaper. Hence the reason why she insists on calling me Reaper now. She even gave me the gun we found a while back, claiming that if I was the grim reaper, I needed a signature weapon. I still just use the knife I stole off Triyan though. Much easier. _

The song 21 Guns… well there's only one word to describe it: epic. The first time I heard it I was amazed. I then bought the song on my iTouch through iTunes and listened to the lyrics. I thought the song could very well describe some of the situations we get into. It's definitely one of my favourites and it always will be. But to think, my supposed enemy likes it too…

_Journal Entry 73: Date Unknown_

_Finally got this stupid collar off…but it's not without a price…better get you up to speed. _

_First, I realised how my power worked properly. Suffice to say, I was not happy.I figured I could read auras, and emotions. But…the first thing I noticed was my friends' deaths. Their original deaths were… horrible. Lets just say I put them out of their misery._

_Then Britt Maxicom captured me. They used this collar to control me. Whenever they wanted something done, it would whistle so high pitched that I would almost be forced to kill myself to get rid of the pain… stupid echolocation. I was under their control for close to three years. In that time I had to capture experiments and fake their deaths if they had families. One girl… she just came willingly. She just looked at me and said 'I'll come with you, but it'll break Max's heart. I'll let her know one day that you're not evil.' Odd. Max…the name stirred up a memory somewhere. I was also forced to capture 'Iggy.' That name I know I've heard, even if it was just in passing._

_I also had to capture a little girl, who was apparently a creation of two different experiments' DNA. A daughter if you will. She was extremely smart for her age. She told me stories of her 'daddy', and how he'd tell stories of his old family, the 'Flock'. Her Daddy was called 'Fang', another name I've heard. And then it all clicked into place. That little girl who agreed to come willingly, Iggy, Faith, all connected to the flock…Maximum Ride's flock. Maximum Ride, one of the only ones to have shown me kindness. I was… horrified, to say the least._

_So I started working together with Faith, and worked out something that could help the flock. A sort of flock telepathy if you will. It'll allow the members to communicate with each other at relatively long distances…well, at least until the last member gets in range. That's how the connection was established, Max had obviously gotten within range to communicate with them. But we didn't foresee the part where Max got the flock's powers…_

_Gotta go, they're after me again._

I read on, how she and Faith had constructed her own death, how she saved her own pack from inevitable pain, how her power worked properly. It wasn't enough for me to actually like her, but it was enough for me to forgive her…maybe.

"Max?" Fang asked. "The others are getting hungry. Are you done reading someone else's diary?" he asked and in that one moment, I slipped. I accidently opened up my mind to the others in the flock and let all that I read slip through. There was an immediate uproar.

"WHAT!"

"B-b-but…how?"

"Crazy, I say, _crazy."_

"Still creepy and evil to me."

"How could she? She made Max's life hell!" One guess who that was. I looked to Fang, waiting for his outburst, but it never came. He had a thoughtful look on his face, as if contemplating something.

"It seems like something Faith would do. She was extremely smart, and if she had the means, she could do anything if she set her mind to it. I'm not surprised she came up with this… but I'll _never_ forgive Reaper. She still made me believe everyone I loved was dead," Fang said slowly, a glint in his eyes.

I nodded my head in agreement. "We'll need to see Jeb soon. He'll probably need to know all this," _if he doesn't already._ The last part I added silently. He always knew what was going on. Maybe it was something that came with old age… one would never know.

**Me: ok, I'm beat, I'm going to sleep. Only two reviews on the last chapter? C'mon, you can do better than that! I also made this one longer, so you have no excuse… except if you're still doing exams.**

**Chancey: that one had a few morbid parts, didn't it.**

**Dylan: duh. We recently watched the movie Autopsy. *shivers* still can't get those images out of my head…**

**Me: *shudders* its worse than the school! But anyway, I'm sorry I ever took that stupid dare! But at least I got another way to kill Dylan out of it.**

**Chancey: not ripping out his guts is it?**

**Me: no, that didn't actually kill them. Force him to watch it then dress up as a doctor or in a hospital gown and really pale, then sneak up on him! He'll have a heart attack! But anyway…**

**Dylan: *backs away slowly***

**Me: hopefully that'll be the last of the Reaper-centric stuff. I have a few ideas, some of them funny, some random and some I don't even know how my brain comes up with them! **

**R&R**


	13. Beginnings

**So sorry about the slow updates! I've had exams, performances, assignments and issues for the past 10 weeks. But I WILL update once a week from now on. I won't keep you from the chapter any longer, so have fun reading!**

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**[REAPER_]**

Damn, they upgraded the sentinel drones… again. And they tested them on the flock. Wonderful. They're making it awfully hard for me to 'protect' them. And now they're probably gonna realise the faults and weaknesses of the sentinels and fix those up and be even more impossible to kill… Aurgh! This is getting ridiculous! Britt Maxicom will become unstoppable if we don't get to them first. But there was something…something I remember from my 'stay' with them. Project Omega. All I know is that Omega is a 'Failed' experiment who was terminated after he failed to kill Max. That… and omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. So this could be either bad or very bad.

**[MAX_]**

'_I need a herooooo to save my life, a hero's gonna save me just in time!'_ Augh! Wonderful… Gazzy has Hero by Skillet stuck in his head, and me being me couldn't block him out. Its frustrating to say the least. I wonder if this is how Angel feels?

'_You have no idea…'_ Angel thought. You know I never thought about that before. I feel very bad: Iggy had managed to get the song that never end stuck in my head once, and I was singing it for a week.

I was knocked out of my inner musings by a feathery cannonball. Iggy was being an idiot and stacked the flip he was trying to do. Well that's what you get when you try to backflip five times without flapping.

"Do you mind?" I snapped at him. He looked up at my general direction and shrugged sheepishly. Nudge, Gazzy and Angel thought it was funny and were trying to smother giggles. Well it won't be funny when they're the ones knocked out of the air!

Angel's eyes widened when she realised what I was planning. "SCATTER!" she shouted but it was too late. I was already dive-bombing into Nudge and grabbing Gazzy on the way. This time Fang was the one trying to hide his laughter. Dylan was apparently above having fun and being kids, so he just sniffed disapprovingly. I stuck out my tongue at him to show how mature I was. Angel decided to head for Fang but I warned him before she got too close. Soon it turned into a full-out war of tag-a-feather.

It was sunset by the time we stopped with our games, so we landed in the conveniently placed forest that was below us. We set up camp but Dylan was looking at us disapprovingly the whole time.

"Tomorrow we keep heading the direction we're going, maybe stop at a town check up on the news," I said and everyone but Dylan agreed. What was up with him?

He scowled at me and tapped his foot in a condescending way. Oh, look at me! Big words! "We could be half way across the nation by now if you weren't playing childish games! I expect it of Iggy and Fang, but not you, Max!"

Iggy scowled but then his face lit up and the same way Fang's did. Oh, they were plotting something…

"Hey! I'm not childish!" Iggy cried indignantly. He then walked up Fang, tagged his shoulder and quickly ran behind me. "Tag, Fang! You're it!"

Fang sniffed and held his head high. "Not right now. I am a mature adult, above playing games and having fun. I will now return to my overly boring and mature life. By the way, my name is not a stupid name like Fang, it's Nick, a respectable and mature name."

The rest of the flock couldn't hold it in any longer: we all burst out laughing. We couldn't help it: seeing Fang muck around like that was priceless. Unfortunately Dylan had to ruin the moment. Stupid Dylan.

"I'm serious!" said party-pooper growled.

I grinned at him. "Chill, Dill. Hehe that rhymed. Everyone has to have fun sometimes, ya know? It gets rid of stress, and it's well…fun!"

He still looked tense and serious…like an adult. "Because we can all the fun we want when there's an evil company on our tail, catching up." Hey! Sarcasm is my thing!

And guess what: that little childish thought is what made me snap. "Well, even though you _look_ the oldest, you're technically the youngest and least experienced. I, on the other hand am older and have way more experience than you! So what I say goes."

Dylan stomped his foot and glared while I froze.. "Fine!" he shouted and ran off to find firewood.

"Uh, is it just me or is Dylan acting…" Iggy started.

"Strange?" Fang suggested and Iggy nodded.

Gazzy looked thoughtful. "Stranger than normal, you mean?" he asked.

Nudge was nodding so fast that she looked like a bobble-head. "Yeah, yeah yeah! Isn't he normally hanging off Max's every word like it's, like, the bible or something? And he's always trailing after Max like a lost puppy." That was Nudge's twenty cents.

I, however, was still frozen. Something Angel noticed. "Are you alright Max?" she asked and alerted the whole flock to my little problem. Now the whole flock was staring at me.

"Did Dylan just stomp his foot like a little girl…?"

**[BRITT MAXICOM_]**

Shane Snowe was getting impatient. The conference was taking too long, and all because of one little detail they all forgot: Maximum Ride. The board of directors were all for Maximum Ride supporting their company, but Snowe could only shake his head at them. From what he read of in Maximum Ride's file, she would never support their company. They were going against all she ever believed in.

When the chairman started blabbing on about the advantages Snowe had finally snapped. He slammed his hands in the table to get everyone's attention and then started growling at them. "Did you even bother reading her file? She will never work for, she is only a threat! This company is the spitting image of _ITEX,_ without all the weaknesses. _She_ was the downfall of Itex, and therefor this company if we don't stop her!"

The chairman looked over his glasses at him. This company was his life, but he wasn't foolish enough to think that it was unstoppable. "What do you propose?"

Snowe was startled at the sudden change in attitude, but regained his feet. "Don't worry, my people have come up with an emergency plan if anything like this were to happen. At the time, it was only a precaution but now it is needed." Snowe was grinning maliciously into the distance. The other members of the board started shifting in their seats, fearing for their lives. "I will put this plan into action immediately."

Ignoring the objections, Snowe turned off his iPad, stood up and quickly strode out of the room. He was a man on a mission and no one was going to get in his way. This plan of his would take time, but as long as it eliminated the threat, he was all for it.

Snowe reached his office with no interruptions- all the workers had seen and felt the anger and determination off him, and none wanted to get in his way. He sat down at his large desk, ignoring the cup of coffee that his secretary placed there. He grabbed his private cell phone out of his suit pocket and pressed speed-dial and held the phone to his ear.

It only rang once before someone answered. "_Ves?"_

"Ter Borche, go ahead with Plan _Kira. _Relay command immediately."

"_My absolute _pleasure." There was a click and then beeping started, signalling that he had hung up. Snowe could practically _hear _his smirk, and shuddered. He had worked and plotted with Ter Borche for a little over four years now, starting just after the fall of ITEX. Even though he had worked with him for so long, Snowe still shuddered when he thought of him actually smirking. Ter Borche was sadistic, taking pleasure in torture and life-taking and Snowe wouldn't trust him further than he could throw him. To put it bluntly, that man was _frightening._

Snowe sighed and spun his chair around to look out his recently-replaced window. That was another thing. Now, Snowe wasn't a Christian by any means, nor did he have a religion, but he liked to believe that there were other forces at work beyond human comprehension. And messing with the assassin known as Reaper felt to him like messing with forces beyond any humans' or experiments' control.

**[REAPER_]**

I sighed and picked up my new journal before writing. I had lost my old journal almost two weeks back, sometime around when the flock was attacked. Oh well, if one of them _did_ manage to find it, they'd find out I was somewhat innocent…

_Journal Entry 3: Start of autumn. _

The nightmares have started again. Except this time they're different. They are events that have never happened in my life time… yet I can't help but feel like they _did_ happen to me. Another thing: there's like a set of rules that don't even make sense programed into me, yet they don't seem to be the type of rules that ITEX or Britt Maxicom would create. I think it has something to do with my ability. I doubt normal humans _or _experiments have a set of rules that are ingrained into their mind like it's instinct.

_They're…_

I paused before writing further. Why did I write anyway?

_Because writing your heart out is the next best thing if you don't have someone to talk to._ Some, rational and smart part of my brain supplied. I shrugged, I guess that was true.

I put my pen back on the paper and continued writing. Perhaps writing these rules down will help me understand…

…_The rules are as follows:_

I. Taking a life is essential to keep the balance of life and death but murdering without cause is forfeiting the position and your life.

II. Saving the life of a being is permitted but only if it is not their time. DO NOT INTERFERE IF THEIR TIME IS UP.

III. Interfering with the second rule will save the life of the being but your life will take its place- the balance must be restored.

IV. Suicide is not permitted and does not work. The body will not be affected until it is up but the consciousness will move on.

V. If a being is still alive even if their time is up because of circumstances interfering with their cause of death it is your obligation to end the being as quickly and painlessly as possible.

VI. If the balance of life and death is out of order, it is your priority to restore it quickly, finding the fault, before it is unbalanced for eternity. Consequences are unknown.

VII. Previous life memories, abilities and secrets will only be revealed in dire circumstance. Unlocking them without permission is _forbidden…_

_My life could be a best-selling fictional series,_ I thought, putting down the pen. Now that I had the rules on paper, I could examine them better and stuff that escaped my notice earlier popped out of me. _Consciousness will move on? _Does this mean it's happened before? Whatever _it_ is? And how was I supposed to know about the balance of life and death? To me it sounds like some sort of zen thing.

My mind screeched to a halt when I read the last rule. That last one had always been there, yet I had never been able to reach it. I had been unconsciously writing it but that just meant I could finally get it… and wish I never read it. You mean… I've had past lives? Like reincarnation? I guess it makes sense… But if reincarnation was possible, I doubt most of the people who were got a big list about balances of life and death. I guess I'm just special. Again.

Perhaps it's time I go see Jeb. He could help me, and he always seemed to know what was going on, even when others had no hope of understanding. I'll just have to time my visit so I don't bump into the flock. Bumping into them now would be bad, for me that is. And they can survive without me hovering over them, saving their butts. So it's decided: I'll see Jeb, probably sometime in the next week. He'll know what to do.

**[MAX_]**

I woke up startled. Iggy was on watch and he looked straight at me when I sat up. It was only around two o'clock, another hour before final watch. I walked over to Iggy and tapped him on the shoulder twice, signalling that I would take over. I had no hope for getting back to sleep. Iggy looked at me with concern but didn't argue.

I sighed and stared up at the stars. Warning bells, that's what woke me up and I could still hear them… but there was nothing in sight. I leaned against the tree and started my watch. My thoughts couldn't help but wander to what I read about Reaper. Is she really the bad guy- uh, girl- in all of this? Or just someone caught up in the current. I didn't matter anyway. As long as she doesn't try to kill us, it's all good.

Now what to do about Britt Maxicom? Obviously we need to do research, but I have a funny feeling that the results will come up similar, if not the same as ITEX. But how will we bring it down? Britt Maxicom will have obviously learned from ITEX's mistakes so I doubt that taking it down branch by branch will work… no, it'll have to be something else. And what about those drones? They'll definitely have more of those things and they'd probably fix up the weaknesses. But it was disturbing how they knew about Nudge's magnetic and hacking abilities. Us and probably Jeb and Ella are the only ones who know about it, so how could Britt Maxicom know, let alone counter it?

No use asking pointless questions now. I grabbed Fang's pack, being as silent as possible as not to wake him up, and fished out his laptop. I started it up and noticed with alarm that there was only 20% battery left. We'll definitely need to stop at a town some time soon. Once the laptop was loaded, I clicked on internet explorer and opened up the tab from Fang's blog. I scanned through, noting with relief that he only posted stuff about how we're still alive and that we're gonna need help soon. We wouldn't want to alert Britt Maxicom, and Fang figured out that writing about it in his blog is a big no-no.

I was startled when I saw a comment by _jELLAbean. _It had to be Ella. I read the comment: _message from Jeb- be on your guard. Beware of Omega. I have no idea what that means, but plz be careful. You guys r my only family left._ Omega? I thought ITEX terminated him? Great, just another thing to add onto my list of things to worry about. I replied to the comment and snapped the laptop shut and slid it back into Fang's pack.

With nothing better to do, I grabbed my bow that I inherited and started polishing it. It was the last thing I received from my mother, so it wasn't going to go to waste.

**[?_]**

My eyes snapped open when I felt the transmitter buzzed close to my chest. Without a sound, I brought it close to my face so I could read the message. _Commence with project Kira ASAP. _I smirked and destroyed the transmitter in my hand, leaving no trace of the message.

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**LE GASP! What will happen next?**

**Dylan: dunno.**

**Me: I can tell you this: the plot will definitely move on much quicker now. You have reached the point of no return!**

**Chancey: I can see a death-note reference!**

**Me: yes, it's quite obvious to anyone who knows anything about death-note. But kudos to whoever gets it first!**

**Now seriousness: I will be in Melbourne this time next week, also visiting Falls Creek (snow field). I can't wait seeing as I've only ever been to the snow once being a Queensland girl. There MIGHT be an update, I will quite possibly work on the next chapter on the four hour bus trip from Melbourne to Falls Creek. But I do guarantee this: When I return it will be winter break as my cousins refer to it as. I will definitely update plenty in that time. **

**That's all from me, cheerio!**


	14. Plans

**SORRY! I know I said I'd update once a week but then I went on a ski trip and then to Melbourne and then something went wrong with my arm and I couldn't move it and then I got really sick –still am- and then I had to practise for my piano and sax exams that are coming up in august and now I'm on multimedia camp and it's been hogging my time! I've been designing banners, blog posts, web pages –I'm the webmaster of the team- and also helping out with learning how to use PROFFESSIONAL cameras and equipment for filming! I have a busy life.**

**In other news: I SAW THE NEW TRANSFORMERS MOVIE TWO WEEKS AGO! IN IMAX! It's epic, and I won't say anthing else because I don't want to spoil it! **

**I also went to see the epic Collingwood vs Hawthorne game at the MCG! Collingwood won, which was epic! Did anyone else go and or watch it? O.o**

**[MAX_]**

I gasped and took a big swig of my water. The temperature was past boiling and it was so humid you could almost drink the air…yeah, not fun. Especially while trying to fly, key word trying. We managed to swipe a new battery for Fang's laptop, one that should run for a few more months. Currently we were all crowded around Nudge, who was trying to break into Britt Maxicom's system. She had her tongue out and she was sweating, whether from the heat or trying so hard I had no idea.

Nudge looked up from the screen, cracked her knuckles and said "It's a tough system, almost like they know how I hack. It might take a while, but I might get it eventually."

I patted her on the back, trying to look like I didn't care, but on the inside I was wound so tight it wasn't funny. Only those in the flock knew how good Nudge was at hacking, so that must mean either someone slipped or… well, I didn't want to think the other option. "It's alright sweety, take all the time you need." I then turned to the rest of the flock, "Give her some space, you'll probably know when she's cracked it."

We scattered around camp, though not without some huffing and puffing. Iggy and Gazzy went off to stock-take all their bombs, Angel and Fang were plotting something or other and Dylan was standing next to me, looking like he wanted to talk. I gave him a look that clearly said 'shoot'.

Dylan blushed and scuffed is shoe on the ground, drawing random patterns in the dirt. "Sorry I snapped at you yesterday. I was just… jumpy, I guess you could say."

I shrugged and punched him lightly on the shoulder, just enough to feel it. "Nah, it's alright. Sorry for teasing you," I grumbled. I made the mistake of looking straight into his eyes and I found myself being drawn to him. I shook my head to stop myself, and once my thoughts came back, I realised his eyes looked oddly familiar. They had a slightly different glint to them now. It wasn't necessarily bad, just…different.

'_You're too trusting, Max,'_ Angel sent me and I turned to frown in her direction.

I thought, 'What makes you say that?'

'_Have a look for yourself. His thoughts are all jumbled, like I can't read them.'_

I tried reading Dylan's mind and found I could read his thoughts just fine. And they were about, you guessed it, me. Wonderful…note sarcasm.

'I can read him just fine, sweety. Are you alright?'

Angel didn't bother answering. She just scrunched up her face and tried to read Dylan. Perhaps she was sick?

I sat down, and because I had nothing better to do, I decided to talk to Dylan for a bit. It was actually quite a good conversation- I learned quite a bit about him. Like his favourite colour was sky blue, for obvious reasons, of course, he hated foods like McDonald's (but how was he going to get all the required calories?) and he was surprisingly good at math and everything else to do with education. He was actually a fun person to talk to.

Too soon, the conversation ended because Dylan needed to go and fill his water canteen. I got up and walked over to talk to Fang. The dark-haired avian-american looked pointedly at me and I sighed. "Fine, I justwanted to try and get to know him better. He's actually a decent person!" Fang looked at me like he was debating which mental asylum to send me to. "What? You know, if you got past your jealousy –yes, Fang, _jealousy-_ you would actually find he was a pretty good conversationalist and a fun person to talk to."

"Umm…"

"Oh, right. I almost forgot you don't really like talking. You've been so chatty lately, it's almost been unlike you!" I exclaimed and I immediately went on guard. Someone in the flock acting differently was not a good sign. It usually means they either:

A – betrayed us and are selling our secrets to enemy organizations

B – got replaced with a clone (see my second volume of our adventures. It does happen!)

Or C - are having emotional or mental problems.

With someone like Fang, it would normally be C. After all, he barely ever lets out his emotions, but with Britt Maxicom knowing all of our strengths and weaknesses (see the giant metal robots), I was starting to get a little jumpy. I would just have to keep an eye on Fang, I decided.

Fang rolled his eyes and pecked me on the cheek before walking off to assist Nudge.

She however didn't need his help, because just as he was about to reach her, she screamed "I DID IT! Quick Max! I can't stay in long before the automatic firewall blocks me again!"

I almost used super-speed to get over to Nudge. When I got to the screen I saw a blank home-page, with weirdly labelled links. Nudge handed me control and I clicked the cursor at a name that looked interesting.

_PROJECT: KIRA_

_DESCRIPTION: failsafe. Disposes of threat, little hassle, cause 'natural'_

_STATUS: activated. In Progress._

I frowned. "That was vague."

"Only the people who needed to know would be told in person, in case of a security breach. This is probably for documentation purposes only," Nudge replied logically.

I nodded and pressed the back key. I clicked on another link. The name was familiar and even if it was as vague as the last one, it was probably worth knowing.

_PROJECT: OMEGA_

_DESCRIPTION: mental transfer, skills and cunning. Re-vamped, able to make own decisions, though only if it was for the better._

_STATUS: complete_

I sat there blankly. Omega was that experiment that I faced in Germany, one that was good at everything but following movement. It was a little odd that they were bringing him back up all this time.

"Hey, Max, isn't that the-"

"Yes, Angel," I answered, cutting her off before she could finish voicing the question.

"Quick Max, you don't have long. I calculated you only have another minute and a half before it figures out your presence," Nudge said quickly.

"Right, chief," I said sarcastically but in a way, also seriously, as I clucked the back key once more. I clicked on a random link, and this one had a bit more info than the others. That didn't mean it was any less vague.

_PROJECT: EXODUS_

_DESCRIPTION: see ITEX 'BTHP'. Release 'Morte Mark IV', 'Garras' vaccines. Dr T.B head. Activated only by SS desktop, security codes in place._

_STATUS: standby, ready for deployment. _

The computer was then blocked out, with error written all over the page in funny gibberish.

"What was…that? That last one was just odd," Gazzy said. "I mean, I'm no good at reading but that one obviously had a lot of missing word."

"I know. I'll write down what was on the screen, so we don't forget," I said, 'though it I very unlikely we will' I added silently. Something fishy was going on here, fishier than normal for evil companies, anyway. I mean, why have all _that_ on the web for everyone to see? Mind you, it was encrypted and we were lucky to have Nudge, but…

"Nudge, does the internet on that brick still work?" I asked and she nodded. "Then google Britt Maxicom, find out their specialities. You know how ITEX was supposedly so good at genetic engineering? Something like that."

"Alrighty, boss!"

"Fang, Angel, Gazzy and Iggy- see if you can try and brainstorm what ITEX BTHP means. The ITEX part is obvious, so don't go looking too far in the wrong direction. The BTHP part rings a bell, acronym for _something."_

"What are you going to do then?" Iggy asked and I shrugged my shoulders, but then I remembered he couldn't see.

"Dunno, I guess try and get in touch with Ella, and then try and get the voice to help us" I said. The answer must have been good enough because he turned and sat down with the others.

Dylan came back with a full canteen, and noticed the others working together. "What's all this…?" he asked.

"Nudge got through briefly to Britt Maxicom," I said and some kind of expression that I couldn't read came across his face. It was like a mix of surprise and scepticism. "We didn't get much other than mumbo-jumbo, just some really vague info. You can help Nudge research Britt Maxicom, try and look for weaknesses." Dylan agreed and went to help Nudge without argument.

I sat down underneath a shady tree, trying to ward off the heat. I grabbed the charm around my wrist and activated the com-link. "Ells? Are you there?" I asked.

"_Yep, and I can hear you loud and clear. Something big happen?"_

"Kinda, just thought I better update you. After all, you are part of the flock."

So I told her about everything that happened since I last saw her, including the parts with Reaper.

"_I don't get it! If she wasn't evil, then why was she taunting you at mum's funeral?"_

"I have no idea. I think she was being controlled. I dunno, now I think back on it, it did seem a little fake. Hey, speaking of mum, where have you been staying?" I asked. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because I could hear growling on the other end.

"_With my dead-beat dad. He lives in Baja, so a different change of scenery. I have a new school, but everyone teases me, and the apartment we live in is dodge, along with the surrounding area! And he keeps glaring at me, like it was _my_ fault I got dumped with him! He even said so once when he came home stoned. I have to do all the cooking, cleaning and more! He is a slob, leaves beer bottles everywhere and he comes home from the bar with a different slut every night!"_

I frowned. It sounded horrible. "He hasn't hit you?" I asked, because that would probably be the last straw.

"_No… well, not yet. He's getting more demanding, and emotionally abusive, but so far he hasn't hit me…"_

"Say no more. I'll come and bust you out soon-"

"_No Max! You have more important things than me! You need to figure out-"_

I cut her off, as was fair. "Oh, stop being a frikin' martyr, that's my job! Just give me the address, and I'll get you the hell outta dodge as soon as I can."

I could hear her sigh of relief. "_Thank you Max! You are the best sister a girl can ask for!"_

"Don't thank me yet, he could start before I get there. And I have no idea what I'll do with you once you get out. You can't wonder on your own, because I'm sorry to say this, but you wouldn't last in the real world for a day, you have zilch survival instincts and to top that off I have people hunting me, and now probably anyone I have connections with."

"_We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."_

I was about to say good-bye but I remembered something. "Hey, Ells? Do you still have that Barretta mum gave you?" I asked.

"_Yeah, why?"_

"Because, if he gets to close and I'm not there, don't be afraid to shoot. Keep it on you at all times."

"…_Alright. Love ya."_

"See you soon, hopefully," I said and ended the connection. "Hey, Fang," I said to the boy who had been standing behind me for the past few minutes.

"Hey." He sat down beside me and started rubbing circles between my wings. I tensed up but then relaxed into his touch.

"Oh! That feels _so_ good right now!" I groaned. I just got a slight smirk in response. "Hey, how long do you think it'll take us to get to Baja, Cali?" I asked, "Because I wanna get there quick."

"I honestly have no idea. Ella's father sounds like a jerk. I agree, we need to get her out quickly," he agreed.

"So next stop: Cali. What will we do after that?"

"Why are you asking me? You're the boss. Besides, we need more info. Perhaps Cali might give some insight," he replied quickly, seeing me glare at him for the 'you're the boss comment'. Ah, I have him whipped good.

"HEY MAX!" Nudge called.

"Yeah?" I asked her loud enough for the others to hear me.

"We found some info for you!"

I groaned when Fang stopped rubbing my back. He stood up and offered me his hand, which I gladly accepted. I was almost tempted to drag him back down on the ground with me, but he must have head my thoughts because he stood strong. And when I say strong, I do mean strong.

We walked over to where Nudge and Dylan were with the laptop. "Shoot," I commanded.

"Well apparently Britt Maxicom is like ITEX in the way of having claws in every corner of the business, medical, media and retail worlds, Jeb was right about that. Did you know there's even a Britt Maxicom channel on TV? Anyway, in sciences and lab, they specialize in robotic sciences and nanotechnology, which I don't get because nothing about those robots was nano if you know what I mean," Nudge rambled. I nodded slowly as she talked, cataloguing the information as she spouted it in speed-talk.

"Great, you did good to begin with. See what else you can find." Nudge nodded enthusiastically but Dylan glared slightly, like he didn't like researching. Suck it up, princess. Fang and I walked over to where the others were goofing off.

"What about you guys? Come up with anything interesting?"

"Interesting? Yes. Relevant? No." Iggy answered.

"Butt-head Technology House Project? Big Trees Hate Progress? Buying The Hole Planet-" Gazzy started.

"Wrong whole," Angel said simply and Gazzy scowled.

"Whatever. I was only in school for a few weeks!"

Iggy stopped the fight before it started. "See? Interesting? Yes. Relevant? No."

I shrugged. "I guess you tried." _Voice? Any ideas?_ Ok, I was getting desperate.

_By the Half._

_What? Come again._

_By the Half Plan._

My eyes widened. It fit, _and_ it kinda fit the rest of the description thing in the file! Thanks voice! This one time it helped, rather than spurting off fortune cookie crap!

"By the Half Plan," I said loud enough for the whole flock to hear. Iggy, Gazzy, Fang and Dylan looked puzzled but Angel and Nudge nodded in understanding.

"Of course! It fits!" Angel said, voicing my thoughts.

As Angel and Nudge updated the clueless boys, the only thought going through my head was _don't they learn from other's mistakes?_

**[REAPER_]**

Ok, I admit it: I'm still following the flock.

Specializing in nanotechnology? That makes no sense unless they were actually genuine and are going through on their promise to cure cancer. Somehow, I just don't see them doing that. This was a puzzle, but one with limited time. Max's lifespan just dropped dramatically, and I intend to find out why.

**So, what do ya think?**

**Chancey: …**

**Dylan: hey, are you actually starting to like me? *hopeful***

**Me: nah. I have plans. *insert maniac laughter***

**Chancey: *backs away slowly***

**Me: Im actually kinda depressed- one, my midnight tickets to the final HP movie were nicked by another avid fan (long story, don't bother asking) and 2- the fact that it's the LAST of the LAST! HP is at an end! :( **

**But on a more random note: I have a new fave cartoon! Give it up for Danny Phantom! I watched the whole series in 36 hours. Lets just say it involved me, sickness, boredom and a laptop.**

**Anyways, please review! Toodles!**


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